Calling to the Night
by rexillius
Summary: [Platinum Nuzlocke] To survive, you only need to train monsters. To find glory, you must become one.
1. the father

**disclaimer:** don't own pokemon.

* * *

 **0.** _the father_

* * *

"You want to be a trainer, Dawn?"

She nodded thoroughly.

"You remember the rules?"

She kept on nodding.

"Memorize them. Get them committed. Dream them. _Live them_."

She didn't want to stay here in this dark, dank holding cell. She wanted to be out in the arena with him, seeing the monsters towering above her, feeling the earth shake - she wanted to tell him so many things—

She settled for, "I'm not afraid."

He gazed down at her, then ruffled her hair. His palm was sweaty. He drew it back to his belt in seconds, but his calm, stony expression didn't falter. "I'm not afraid, either. Just excited."

He turned to the door, but looked over his shoulder— "You remember that, okay? Whatever happens - I was excited."

The horn went off outside, vibrating the ancient stone doors.

 _"Trainers, to your stations!"_

"Back to your seat," he said, throwing on his jacket as he approached the door. "Keep an eye on Mom, and make sure she doesn't try jumping into the fight, because god knows, she's going to try." He looked back one more time. "Rule number four, okay?"

"Yeah, Dad!" Dawn cried, her voice cracking.

He smiled.

It was not kind.

\\-|-/

He told her the rules last night, when she was scurrying around the hotel room with more energy than Palmer and his boy combined. It was hard enough keeping up with her, and even harder for him to scoop her up - his pulled muscles, old separations and broken bones ached under her tiny weight.

"I'm gonna be a trainer, too!" she said, squirming at first, then relaxing. "I'll be bigger and I'll beat you!"

"Well, he said, patting her shoulder, "you don't even know how to be a trainer."

"You catch pokemon, and you train with them, and you fight with them."

"Yeah, but that's not what it's really about."

"What do you mean? Can you tell me?"

Johanna hovered behind him - he could imagine her, hand planted on the doorway, as if it was the only thing in the world that could hold her up when he wasn't there.

If she was the one speaking, she'd say - _Don't worry about it - when you grow up, you won't need to be a trainer. We'll make sure of it._

But he wasn't Johanna.

He held Dawn closer, then put her down, squatting beside her. "Well, we got four rules. Now, no one taught me these things when I started out, so you'll be ahead of me. So long as you pay attention."

She looked at him, intently. He felt Johanna's gaze, too.

He opened his mouth to speak, then widened his eyes and shouted, "Hey, look out!"

Dawn whipped around, right into his trap, and he got her, toppling her onto the carpet and keeping her pinned down as her yelp turned into a giggling fit. "You get that?" he asked after chuckling. "I mean, I was being nice to you, but that's our first rule—" She was attentive again, and sure. "Anyone can be your enemy."

He rolled upright and held out his hand, and just as she grabbed it - her hand so small and delicate in his scarred, monstrous fingers—

" _Daaaad!_ " she cried as he shoved her back down, and she crossed her arms but couldn't maintain the pout.

 _You think this is some big game, don't you?_

"That's the second rule. Anyone can be your enemy. Even those you think you know. Even those you love."

 _How the hell am I supposed to teach you this otherwise?_

"And the third rule," Johanna said, smiling warmly as she lay down beside them, "is to listen to your mom when she tells you to go to bed."

He raised a finger. "That's not the actual rule, but it's a pretty good one."

"Do I have to?"

"Rules are rules."

"And the rule is also to listen to your wife," Johanna said, poking his ribs.

"That, too. Let's get you back into bed, and I'll explain the other rules."

When he had that settled, he went onto the balcony, where Sunyshore's distant lights shone across the water, bright like the stars had fallen among the skyscrapers. Now - and only now, without Dawn here - could he call out his monsters.

He threw his ball, releasing an aura of darkness that melted away into empty air. Dusknoir's manifestation began with its eye, a stoplight red glow hovering in the night, before the rest of its body unfurled like an unwrapped cloth, rippling into a twisting, crawling, pulsing entity that made the air quiver with some immense pressure.

He straightened himself with his mouth set in a grim line, as if he were a Honchkrow summoning its flock. The monster shrunk, cowered, made itself smaller than he was.

It took years to get this one to obey, but now he didn't even need the stunstick or Umbreon's powers. This ghost wouldn't dare touch him. This ghost wouldn't feed without him. It knew he was always watching - and it took only one itchy finger to send it back into silent, absolute darkness.

This master of death - who had once tried to kill him time and time again - would now die for him.

That was rule number three - _Make them fear you. Make them need you._

"Mount Coronet," he uttered, zipping up his coat that one extra sliver. Just the way Johanna would want it. "Now."

The monster bowed its head, enveloping him in shadows.

Tonight, he decided, moments before he was swept into the bleak, howling cold of the mountains, Dusknoir would learn Destiny Bond.

Tournaments didn't win themselves, after all.

\\-|-/

 _"Being a champion's daughter will be like being a princess. So I need you to be well-behaved, okay?"_

 _"Yes, Dad."_

 _"And I need you to not be afraid. Because rule number four—"_

 _She already knew that one._

 _"Never cower."_

Dawn committed herself to those words as the battleground exploded in smoke and dust, rolling into the front stands. Dawn whipped her head back and forth, trying to keep up with the action - Salamence burst out of the clouds and bellowed, flying around the arena, dodging beams of ice that shattered agains the wall. When the smoke cleared she saw a glimpse of Gastrodon huffing and wheezing on the giant screen, and she scrambled up in her seat to see for herself—

"Down, you brat!"

She grimaced and plopped down, and her mom pressed a tight hand on her shoulder.

"Let the kid watch, asshole!" another guy barked, but the argument was cut off when he roared out, "Look out! Ooh, shit! Fuck him up!"

Ice and fire seared and blasted the arena while Salamence's blurred silhouette darted around the field, each explosion making the crowd grow more and more wild, to the point the patrolling Bronzong must have been straining themselves to keep order. The only constants in this battle were the trainers - Dad standing to the left, his thick barn coat flapping behind him. There was a close-up. His eyes were wide. He was sweating.

He hadn't sweated against the Ghost elite, seeing through her tricks and cruelty just long enough for Umbreon to rip Banette's head off by the zipper. But the trainer standing opposite of him, this girl, the champion - who looked older than Dawn but not nearly as old as Dad, or any of the adults around her - she wasn't even looking at the fight. She was staring off into space.

 _Why isn't she paying attention?_

Her thoughts screeched to a halt when the piercing _peeeew_ of the ice beams stopped, and she leaned over the woman in front to see better. Gastrodon was coughing, trying to muster another ice beam, but only squirting a trickle of water.

The match was decided.

Her dad snapped his fingers and yelled, "Dragon Rush!"

Spewing flames, flames that looked more like pure light, Salamence was sheathed in a bright aura as he came crashing down, jaws snapping around Gastrodon's head, crunching and squeezing purple ooze and blood—

And a dagger of ice skewered out through Salamence's head.

Dawn flinched back but didn't close her eyes as the camera took in the horror of the moment - Salamence's wide eyes, what as left of Gastrodon's head pouring out of his mouth, him toppling into a weak heap. And the blood, rich and red, splattering the arena floor.

To make a pokemon fear you and need you - to make him willing to charge into his death - that was what the third rule meant.

 _"Boom! That's a draw! Berlitz's first kill, Sakurai's fifth - but they got one pokemon left! You know what this is, the one, the only—"_

Dusknoir, who had retreated under an onslaught of darkness that ripped apart his being, that somehow came from a frowning stone, whirled back into the battleground. But it wasn't the one people were waiting for - Cynthia tossed a pokeball, and the camera zoomed in on it, its scratches, the bumper stickers, _I'd rather be in_ _Castelia, Pyrite or Bust, History is written in blood—_

It exploded.

Garchomp towered, slaver dripping from its fangs. Dawn sat back in her seat - this thing must have been five times her size - and people were cheering them on, howling, screaming for blood.

Dawn thought of flying around on Salamence with her dad, of Umbreon watching TV with them and listening to classical music, and she wanted blood, too - Garchomp's blood.

The arena rumbled, Garchomp stepping around the opening floor as the battleground shifted, taking the bodies under. Dusknoir scanned the arena as sand poured across the floors, a fat, ridiculous cactus popping up in the corner—

 _"Cynthia opts for the desert arena for her last stand!"_ the announcer said. _"How will this end?_

With speed, Dawn knew.

A thunderclap burst the air as Garchomp took off, and the stadium was filled with that thunder. Dawn felt like she was down there on the battleground as fangs of flame ripped through the air in comet-like streaks, Dusknoir's frail form barely avoiding the swipes, but the tail of his robe caught fire, his antenna was ripped from his head. Through it all, though, his hands glowed with small purple light—

 _Come on come on come on come on—_

Then Dusknoir tossed the light into the ground, covering the arena's surfaces with strange shapes and fractals, and the cameras disconnect. The man behind her bellowed "What the fuck?! Put it back on!" while the announcer boomed, _"What the…? The stadium…!"_

 _Trick Room._

Garchomp suddenly wasn't a bullet but a Slowpoke, inching through the air just a hair from Dusknoir. But Dusknoir was shivering out of existence, and as slow as Garchomp was, it was still coming, straining its limbs, reaching its fiery claw towards Dusknoir's eye—

"He doesn't stand a chance," the woman in front of her whispered.

 _You're wrong,_ Dawn thought, swallowing. _You're wrong. He's gonna use Shadow Ball, and—_

Her father lifted his arm, glowering at his opponent, and yelled, " _Destiny Bond!_ "

The announcer's Exploud dropped its jaw to the floor. The crowd sucked in a collective breath and went silent.

Dawn couldn't see Cynthia's face - but she saw that the champion didn't even twitch.

Her father's cry echoed like a gunshot, like a bell, like a door slamming shut—

And was choked off by his own shriek.

Dusknoir's belly ripped open, and dark tendrils whipped back and tore into her dad, forming into black chains that shot through his chest, his heart, his neck, anchored into his bones—

And when Garchomp's claw sunk into Dusknoir's head, slicing clean through, snuffing out the light—

Her father went down, too, but in a bursting and splattered mess.

The world went silent and still for her, even as Dusknoir's death was marked by an ear-splitting whistle and imploding cloth, as people stood up, roared, screamed, cheered, as the cameras turned back on, as the Champion turned on her heels and walked away - but Dawn saw his fist clenching, his arm quivering, his face twisting her way, his fist shaking as he lifted it an inch off the ground—

Dawn lifted hers, maintained eye contact, and refused to be afraid.

He slumped down.

She could have sworn she heard dark laughter echoing in her mind as her mom held her close and screamed.

\\-|-/

But there - that traitor's Destiny Bond ripping him apart - her father smiled.

Because he had taught her one more lesson - and that was the most important one of all.

Last night, when Dawn had pulled the covers up to her chin - meaning she had no more mischief planned for the night - he sat at the edge of the bed and told her, "And those are the four rules."

"Which took you about fifteen minutes longer than necessary, but okay," Johanna said, winking before shutting the bathroom door behind her.

He loved Johanna - he did love her - but she didn't understand the brotherhood of trainers. She didn't understand what he was trying to do.

But there were things he had to tell Dawn, and there was a fire in her. He saw it brimming when she watched match footage, when she saw blood and torn limbs without flinching, when she debated with him what the next best move was, when she didn't back down from her arguments or her fantasy matchups no matter how badly she was losing—

"There's a secret rule, though," he told her. "It's the one all champions know. It's the only way you can get glory, the only way you can get your one wish from the king—"

"Just tell me!" she pleaded. She nearly burst back out of her covers, but he kept his hand on her collarbone.

"Once I tell you," he whispered, "it means you _have_ to become champion. No matter what the cost."

"No matter what the cost," she repeated.

"I need you to be the _champion._ Nothing less. You get that, right?"

Dawn pursed her lips into a smile and nodded so much - it nearly killed him, how much he was killing her with the wait.

He leaned against her ear.

And he told her:

"Anyone can train a monster. But champion needs to _be_ one."

He released his bruising grip from her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek.

And she trembled.

* * *

 **a/n:**

platinum is probably my favorite pokemon game, so i hope i do it justice.

just some notes:

+the pokeball covered in bumper stickers was borrowed without shame from nature of nature's _pika_ comic, which is probably one of the best pokemon-related comics.

+this fic will take certain liberties with platinum's plot - the opening, such as how dawn gets her starter, has the most significant changes. after about three chapters, however, the gym challenge and the galactic plot will show up like they usually do...just darker. furthermore, i switched up some nuzlocke rules to make the challenge harder but still plausible to beat (unlike my first attempt with the most ridiculous and impossible rules, rest in pieces lucas). the changes, if significant, will be made clear in the story.

if you stick around, expect an update in about a week or two. since i keep going back to my prewritten chapters and changing things, lmao.

anyway - thanks for reading.


	2. the sun

Ten thousand bucks.

Her dad's old stunner.

Her scarf.

Her jacket.

She strapped the stunner to her side with a quick-release latch, bundled the money into her pocket, and made sure her jacket covered everything before heading downstairs. Just before leaving the house, she called out to her mom, "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back."

"How long?"

Her hand lingered on the doorknob. "For a while. To relax."

Her mom looked out from the living room doorway. Dawn couldn't keep eye contact for long.

"Okay," her mom said. "Be careful. Get back here in time." She cracked a smile. "You know your father would hate it if you were late."

Dawn stepped out, the cold night enveloping her. Sinnoh's summers were cool, but they had never been this cold until the incident with Hoenn's god - the land god. Groudon. It threw the entire world off-balance, and even now, three years later, there was snow in summer.

That was what the scarf was for. For the cold.

Judging from the position of the moon, she had three hours to get this done. Three hours before the memorial for all the dead trainers began. Three hours for her to make things right.

Three hours to betray her mom - but to secure her future. Until she stepped outside that night, it seemed so uncertain.

Because seven years ago, Dawn's father had died.

Five years ago, the lab at Sandgem turned its back on her.

Three years ago, Red overthrew the Indigo League, Hoenn's gods nearly destroyed the world, and Barry took off on his journey without looking back.

But tonight, in spite of all that, Dawn was going to get her starter.

The place where she was going wasn't Sandgem. She didn't cut through the grass that had already grown past her knees. She headed into Twinleaf's dark, overgrown forest, where there was a broken tree trunk that looked just like all the others. Except this one didn't have rot or a Kricketot's den inside, but a hole plummeting into the pitch black earth. Into the Underground.

Tonight, Dawn would either get her starter - or get herself killed along the way.

One or the other. There was no question about that.

* * *

 **1.** _the sun_

* * *

"I hoped you would come. It's the least I owe your father." The old man tapped his jaw in thought as he looked over her license. "Mister Berlitz…he brought us our best sales. I admit to missing him at certain times…" Although his eyes were like dark caves, she saw his face crinkle with squinting. "Your eye?"

"…I'm sorry?"

He flipped her license in his fingers before returning it. "Your photo. You hurt your eye."

"I got into a fight." She fidgeted with her pockets. "I won, though, so, uh—"

"I see, I see. We've relocated our operations tonight. Just to be safe." The old man, the overseer in these parts - the man who everyone knew but whose name no one knew - gestured to his left. "Follow these tunnels. Stay close to the wall. Auctions begin in ten minutes, battles in seven."

She walked away, but the tunnels carried his hushed voice: "I hope luck swings your way, Miss Berlitz."

Dawn anchored her hand against the cold, slippery wall to guide her way through the Underground's crappy, miserable lighting. Single lightbulbs popped and flickered among knots of exposed wire, and the long darkness to all sides of her made her skin prickle. This early on, that was all the Underground was - dim, silent, and empty.

At least, she hoped it was empty.

There were rumors that these tunnels housed Sinnoh's high-ranking officials during the war. These stories said there was some insurrection that led to the execution of one hundred and eight rebels in these halls, and their ghosts watched everyone down here, ready to curse, ready to devour.

Others said this was only a failed project to create a safe passage to bypass Sinnoh's wilderness and winters. And supposedly, under cities held by the League, the Underground really was safer than the surface. But here? Dawn kept her eyes out for traps and the hollow eyes of drifters, murderers, demons. For the bodies of the disappeared. The lost.

To keep her mind off the tension in her muscles - and the distinct feeling of being watched - she focused on the wad of bills in her pocket.

Ten thousand dollars. One year of tuition and board for Sandgem's finest academy.

One future sacrificed for another.

She pushed thoughts of her mom to the back of her mind. Those words, those fights - all of that would come later.

 _You have to become champion. No matter what the cost._

Screw the labs, screw the League, screw it, screw it, screw it - Barry hadn't waited a day after he turned ten, and she at thirteen wasn't going to wait anymore. She squeezed through the last thin, crushing tunnel, and came out to an explosion of noise and activity, the smell of sweat and metal filling her lungs.

She immediately side-stepped a chained Houndoom snapping and spewing hot spittle all over her jeans, banging her head against a caged Swablu dangling from a thick support beam. Roars from criminal chatter, monsters and machinery filled her ears and shook the air, and Dawn weaved her way around huddles of strangers reeking of alcohol and white herb. To her left was an old woman's stand reeking of bitter herbs that even the sassiest Swanna would refuse, and to her right was a 'supplement' booth, and someone rushing by with a painting that Dawn was pretty sure had been last seen in a Kalosian gallery - but none of that mattered. The auction hall was coming up, and after that was the colosseum - just a few minutes more and she would have everything—

"Hiya!"

Dawn hissed through her teeth and whipped around, relaxing her fists when she realized it was just some tall, scrawny girl who was barely older than her, wearing some dinky female sailor suit. "Um, hi?"

"Berlitz, right?" The perky girl waved her hand dismissively - her nails were long. "I gotcha, I gotcha. What's your business? Gonna buy a little something?"

"…Not yet. I just—" _Have to keep cool down here,_ she reminded herself, _don't cower—_ "Money, first."

"Ah-ha." The girl leaned in and gave her a big, exaggerated wink that baffled Dawn. She leaned her arm against Dawn's shoulder and said, "Well, Mister UG says if you need a favor—"

"Thanks," Dawn murmured, brushing off the girl. Her hands itched for the stunner, but it was a last resort - ironically, being seen with a weapon would only make her a target.

At least she was lucky this time - that girl was just working for the overseer. The keeper of the asylum. He curated everything down here based his sketchy, almost alien moral code. Dawn had seen her share of bloody fights, desperate addicts and bodies caught in fire traps, but as bad as that was, this place would probably be an outright terrorist cell or human trafficking network if it weren't for his influence.

Because of him, poachers were willing to operate here. And because of that, people could get a pretty solid deal if they were willing to take some risks.

In the auction hall, the computers gouged into the walls buzzed with shifting text and images. Dawn glanced at one reading _Deino, newly hatched, ninetieth percentile in size_ and boggled at its known techniques before the screen abruptly changed to _SOLD - BIDDER #1108_. The overseer had recommended her to come tonight, that there would be good deals - but she didn't expect them to be _this_ good. She briefly imagined herself with a Hydreigon, but she needed a pokemon that wouldn't raise too many eyebrows. The League was keen on investigating poaching. Probably because Cynthia didn't want people taking the cheater loopholes and tactics she must've abused to become champion.

Seriously - the champion could go on and on about how _my starter was gift from someone who cared about me,_ but it didn't change the fact that Gible were just about extinct after centuries of Sinnoh's ice and snow. No one had seen a wild Gible in years. No one caught a Gible. No one got one as a "gift." The most hardcore collectors, oh, they would claim they received theirs as a "gift," and often found themselves in prison shortly after. Of course, this didn't apply to Cynthia. Cynthia was the champion, Cynthia was the face of Sinnoh, Cynthia had everything—

Whatever. It didn't matter. Buying something would come later. She needed money. More money than she had now.

And as she approached the colosseum, she was more than ready to get it.

 _"Hot damn! Tyrunt is blasted back into extinction! Another point for Sinnoh, while the Kalos reps are zero for six in losses, which goes to show what chowing down on snails does for you—"_

The winner of the round, anonymous and unknown as all the others, recalled a bellowing Gyarados before snatching his winnings in a meaty fist. He beamed at the roars of approval from the crowd, smiling grimly as a Salamence crawled out and took the dead Tyrunt for its snack. Dawn's gaze followed the Salamence to two women chatting on the arena sidelines - one was the owner of the Salamence, and the other kept her hand on a Magnezone as her blind Alakazam's glowing blue eyes cast an uneasy light in the arena.

 _"All right, all y'all wimps and wusses!"_ The announcer strolled onto the colosseum floor, twirling the microphone cord around his finger. _"Who's taking on our oh-so inimitable champion of the UG, mister fifteen minutes of fame, mister blackjack and hookers? We're firing up Realgam Roulette and this could be your chance to walk out a bazillionaire or a big, fat L-O-S-E-R—"_

Dawn moved through the crowd with a tightened jaw, ignoring the taunts and jibes - they were more general coked-out insults than anything aimed directly at her. Not like the kids at school. With her hood drawn, no one could tell she was Berlitz's kid. If anyone even remembered who Berlitz was.

Mister Fifteen Minutes of Fame stood with his arms crossed as she matched his bet with the full sum of her money, handing it off to the announcer. She stared down her opponent with an expression as stony as his own until another contestant shuffled into the ring. Dawn glanced to her side - just some tall guy. Old. Rich, judging from how casually he tossed over the money. And, judging from his icy expression, capable of slapping bears.

 _"Awright, let's give it up for this little power trio we got going on here! Brace yourselves, people, cause the roulette starts now!"_

Hot blood pumped in Dawn's veins as the Alakazam raised its spoons, forming a shimmering barrier around the battleground. Meanwhile the Magnezone zipped into the ring, its roulette wheel blinking wild colors as a pokeball popped out to each fighter.

People called this round Realgam Roulette - you either got a predator, or you got its breakfast.

Luck, they called it. Pure luck.

Dawn wasn't one for luck.

She forced a grin as she caught the pokeball. The second it was in her fingers, the bell sounded, and the old guy fired off his pokemon - a brawny Electivire that thundered its chest as it manifested. The other guy's pokeball burst like a grenade and sent a spear of light up, and up—

And up.

Dawn didn't think the Underground could get any darker until she saw the Rhyperior. It must have been at least half as tall as Twinleaf's forest and was sure as _hell_ taller than the Electivire, and her chest brimmed with a little bit of fear and a lot of awe when she heard the deafening roars of its revving drills.

The crowd went nuts, and she wasn't sure how she'd bring it down, but she'd find a way. Realgam Roulette gave players one of five predators or one prey - she had a chance.

She chucked her pokeball at the Rhyperior's head.

She wished for a Dragonite. She wished for a Kangaskhan.

Her stomach dropped when the pokemon came out.

Because she had seen it, five years ago - when she and Barry escaped from their houses and charged onto Route 201 in the dead of the night. When the old professor they'd been looking for yanked her back home by her scarf, when his gentle assistant had opened the suitcase for Barry because while the two of them had been _stupid, feckless, reckless and irresponsible in every way - good gods above, are you incapable of considering the world outside your own self-centered brains? Do you know how terrified your mothers would be if they realized what you'd done? How they would feel if they found you dead? But you, boy, at least you show humility, and little girl, if you had just apologized, if you knew when to give in—_

She had seen it, five years ago, when Barry had been given a choice between the slow but absolutely certain Turtwig, the proud and power-packed Piplup, and—

 _Chimchar._

She saw the little monkey clinging to Rhyperior's horn with narrow, wary eyes, and thought, _Well, nice knowing you._

"Iron Tail!" Rhyperior's trainer hollered.

And that was all she could think - she swung under Rhyperior's tail as it lunged into battle, and tried to keep her eye on Chimchar while dodging fists and flying rocks. It was impossible - totally impossible - but she tried. She would see a bright orange flash, but then a boulder would smash a crater inches to her left, or lightning would char the earth inches to her right. Maybe it was better for a trainer to stay still for these things, but she'd gotten a stupid Chimchar, and she'd thrown him right at Rhyperior, and she'd put her entire goddamn life on the line for the sake of cashing in on her winnings—

A shrieking meteor crashed into her, slamming her into the dirt and then the barrier as jeers flooded her ears and claws ripped into her cheeks. She tore off the little bugger and was about to thrash him against the wall before she realized - it was Chimchar.

He glared at her with wide and furious eyes, squirming out of her grip.

She clenched her teeth and sat herself up as he clambered onto her shoulders. "Look," she snapped, "you just stick with me until they kill each other—"

Her insides turned to ice as a godawful crack pierced the air. It was like splintering bone. Rhyperior was falling, cracks spidering on his shell. The Electivire stood tall, eerie light dissipating from his legs - a rolling kick.

There wasn't any time for outrage. Just the boggled, dumb horror of something so colossal getting thrown off-balance by something so small—

The Rhyperior crashed, and the whole earth broke.

Dawn scrambled away. She only caught the announcer's _"Whoa, goddamn, back off people!"_ as the Rhyperior shattered a huge part of the psychic barrier and smashed into the wall. She barely hoisted herself onto a chunk of unstable earth as the crash of the falling wall exploded behind her, and sheer instinct made her scramble the rest of her body onto her feet.

Right next to the Electivire.

The old man was as far away from the Electivire as he could go, ignoring the crowd's shrieks and howls, hands in his coat pockets. He wasn't giving any commands. Dawn looked back to Electivire, who didn't move, save for his shivering limbs and the electricity between his tails. Blood came out of wounds on his torso, matting inches of fur.

There were a lot of things wrong with him - bulbous growths on missing patches of fur, pink foam coming down his mouth, watery eyes. His breaths were fast and heavy, like he couldn't suck enough air.

Chimchar snarled, his claws digging into her shoulder, even through her jacket.

 _"One down, one to go! Talk about out with a BANG! The crowd is getting restless, people! I'm guessing this is a case of ladies first but there's no chance of getting outta this one—"_

The one elemental type where a stunner was completely ineffectual. Of course. Forfeiting wasn't an option, either - if she left without a starter, she'd have no future. But looking into the dead gaze of a mutant Electivire wasn't much of a future, either...

Chimchar smacked the side of her head. Electivire's gaze shifted - and Dawn smiled.

 _Might as well go down swinging, right?_

"You go for his eyes," she said, and she snapped her hands to her shoulder and flung Chimchar, her whole body swinging with the motion—

The old man screamed, _"Now!"_

Dawn threw herself aside from the electric blast, which arced into the overhead wires and blew up the lightbulbs with a rain of sparks. The arena went black, and a loud _"Goddammit!"_ and a Salamence's bellow boomed over the outrage, but she saw Chimchar. His fire was tiny, though, a matchstick in the dark flying through the air—

But as he Chimchar landed, that tiny fire felt like the sun.

The Electivire's scream made the already outraged crowd lose their minds. A thunderbolt he had been charging veered far away from Dawn as the Electivire howled. He beat his fists against his face, stomping and stumbling left and right while people called out, _"What the hell?! Holy shit! Get the goddamn lights on! Look at that! C'mon you stupid jackass, kill him already!"_

Dawn eyes adjusted to the dark as she shuffled around the fight, trying to get a better look, trying to put her thoughts in order, shouting 'advice' all the while - "Get him! Kill him! Oh crap! Go, go, go!"

But when the Electivire got a lucky shot and ripped the Chimchar off his nose, holding the squirming monkey in his fist - Dawn ran.

The Electivire was so absorbed with crushing the little twerp that he didn't see her grabbing his leathery tail, and once she had a tight grip she threw her weight into the dirt and _pulled._

Electivire dropped him and spun around so fast he sent Dawn flying, and she struck the dirt, eating mud. _Jeez,_ she thought, wiping her mouth, _this guy's attention span is shorter than Barry's…_

She got herself upright, tensing when the Electivire twisted her way, staring her down with his bleeding eye squeezed shut. Her blood was a cocktail of bravado and idiocy and absolute terror—

And she remembered her father's words:

 _Everyone is your enemy—_

The Electivire bared his teeth.

 _Make them fear you—_

He clenched his fists.

 _Never cower—_

Dawn sprung to her feet and gestured to herself like Flint, like Crasher Wake in the ring, and yelled, "Come on! Hit me! _Hit me!_ "

Chimchar shrieked again and Electivire twisted around too, recoiling at the sharp leer the Chimchar shot, and as she blocked out the sounds of the crowd, Dawn knew the little guy and her agreed on one thing.

 _This asshole can just die._

She charged in and smashed a hook into the Electivire's belly, striking his kidney, judging from the choked sound he made. But his fur, riddled with static, zapped her and seized her limbs, but she didn't let up - she smashed him again. The Electivire tried swatting her away before clawing at Chimchar, who scrabbled onto Electivire's tails, trying to get onto his face. When Electivire went for Chimchar, Dawn struck again, back and forth, back and forth.

The Electivire snarled and clutched his face - more froth and blood spilling out than ever, and Dawn was certain that if they kept this up, if they kept tiring him out, he'd lose too much blood and they would _win—_

Until the Electivire grabbed his tail - the one Chimchar was climbing - and tore it out of its socket.

Dawn staggered back at the awful sound. At first she thought that crack was Chimchar, and with that, all of her money and effort crushed into dust and blood - she didn't feel relieved when she saw Chimchar clinging to the dangling tail. The Electivire was uneasy on his feet, but grinned at Chimchar's struggle. Dawn flexed, urging her body to move move move but too little, too late - the Electivire swung his tail and smashed Chimchar on the ground a few bone-crunching times, then reared his fist back—

Dawn threw herself forward as the fist came down.

The crowd sucked in a collective breath—

The barrier flashed pale blue—

The old man's eyes were dark, glinting—

 _"Stop your attack!"_ he screamed.

Dawn heard the crack.

She felt the impact, but not the pain.

Her vision went white, and then it went black.

She swore she heard the crash of an opening pokeball, a roar of a creature she had never heard - but then all sound was gone.

She wanted to think about her mother, her father, Barry and his family, all of them together - but the whole world was dark.

That should have been the end.

But it wasn't.

\\-|-/

"Get your stupid ass up, monkey girl."

Dawn opened her eyes. Her mouth was raw and stung with bitterness and blood. Her entire body ached, but she could at least move around, eventually propping herself up even as her vision spun.

"Still as pretty as ever, aren't you?"

Dawn whipped her head to see an old woman standing over her with a three-toothed grin, her skinny Hypno enthralled by its own swinging pendulum.

"Gave it all up for a monkey." The woman's snicker was more like a rattling exhalation. "Hell if I know why."

The old man was still there. In the dark, she only saw his furrowed brow. His cold gaze felt like a skewer through her eyes. "What compelled you to pull that stunt?"

Dawn squinted at them both, back and forth. "What?"

"…I expected to deal with a fool, but not an idiot. When the Chimchar you sent out was attacked, you dove in to stop it. With your own body. Why?"

"I - I don't know." She racked her brain for answers, but - no. Nothing. "I guess it just felt right." She looked at the woman when the man's relentless stare became unbearable. "If that attack hit me, shouldn't I be dead?"

"Herbs, monkey girl." The lady snickered again. "Blessings be to Shaymin. If I were you, I'd be one of her nuns 'til the end of my days."

She was about to ask, _White herb saved my life?_ before realizing it was the _other_ kind of herbs - the traditional sort of medicine. She didn't know how they worked, but they were capable of some wild, miraculous feats, like potions. So long as you got them in your mouth in time.

They were disgusting, though. And expensive as hell. She wasn't sure if the old woman was generous or if she was about to owe the debt of a lifetime.

"The pokeball didn't work. It must have been modified for these matches," the old man said. "Otherwise, I would have called it back before it struck you. I'm relieved to see you're alive."

Well, he didn't sound like it. But she didn't speak.

Her eyes fell onto the pit. It was an immense hole, as if it were a grave dug for an entire village. "At least you won," she murmured, putting her hood back up. "You must be rich."

"There was a riot," the old man said. "The Electivire and the Rhyperior are dead, and the money was stolen."

"The Chimchar?"

"I believe it is still alive."

"Oh." Dawn shrugged, feeling a slight, satisfied warmth settle in her. "Hey. Good for him."

The old man handed money to the herbal medicine woman. Dawn boggled at the amount. _What the hell? What's that for?_ She thought of the awful feeling on her tongue, the nausea in her belly - _Did he buy those for me…?_

"The Electivire, he needed it," the woman remarked. "He and all the others who fight. They're dead on the inside." When the money was accounted for, she tucked it into her dress. "It was the Rockets that did it to them. Evolved them too soon."

"It seems so," the man said, walking away. "I had my dealings with them in Kanto, and they may still exist."

Rockets this, Rockets that - the words were meaningless to Dawn. She stood up on uneasy legs when something hard smacked against her skull - a pokeball.

"While it wasn't possible in this scenario, I'd suggest recalling your pokemon next time." The man stopped to glance back, his mouth curled in what was either a smile or a snarl - she couldn't tell under his moustache. "What you did was stupid, and rather bad for your health."

She clutched the pokeball, felt its solidity before stuffing it into her pocket. Exhaustion seeped into her body, and she didn't think about what she had lost today - and what exactly she obtained.

She jumped when the old woman started laughing, wheezing, looking down at Dawn with look that made Dawn's insides wriggle. "You just be careful, now. You didn't die this time, but that's no good thing. Your daddy would know - you slip away from Death, Death slips a string round your neck."

"What?"

The woman's Hypno pushed an unsteady cart of jars and herbs to the woman's side. She patted its arm. "I'm just going to ask - have you ever met a trainer who's outfoxed death?" She smirked before she and her pokemon walked deeper into the dark. "Just get yourself to bed. It's already past midnight."

Dawn shook her head to clear it. "What are you talking about? I don't—"

And then it hit her, all at once.

"Wait, it's already _midnight?!_ "

But there was no response. Everyone was gone.

 _Oh crap. Oh crap. Ohhhh crap—_

A final fit of adrenaline burst through her limbs as she took off into the unusually empty halls. She clawed her way through the tight tunnel and hurtled all the way down to where she came in, scrambled up the ladder, nearly slipping off a few times, the stunstick stabbing her side, and when she came out—

A bright light shot in her face. She shielded her face with her arms, but saw the army of cops gathered around the tree trunk, guns aimed, the barks of their Houndour ringing through the woods.

"I have no idea who the hell you are, but you're under arrest!"

Grimacing, she threw her hands up, and the will-o-wisps from the Houndour illuminated the forest like the rising moon.

* * *

 **a/n:** sorry for the delay - i was close to the hurricane and got hit by a power outage. eh, it figures.

so, yeah - when i said the opening had changes, i wasn't kidding. i tried to play the game's opening straight, messed around with how diamond/pearl did things, probably rewrote this chapter several dozen times before finally settling on this approach. as for barry and the other characters who normally show up this early on...don't worry. their time will come. for better or worse.

if there are any questions, let me know.

to those who reviewed - thank you.

and to you - thanks for reading.


	3. the first step

**2.** _the first step_

* * *

After what felt like an hour of sitting handcuffed in a cold squad car, the chief of police returned. He sat beside her, placing her jacket and stunner by her side, just out of reach of her fingers. She'd come to know him well – his habit of twiddling with his Houndoom's ultra ball, how he rubbed his face like he wasn't used to having it clean-shaven. He did both of those things before smiling at her, his teeth gleaming in the dim light.

"Hello, Berlitz."

She tilted her head against the headrest to stretch out her neck. There were cops outside, chatting with each other, calling to black-clothed mourners who had come to look.

"Berlitz, I got friends in those tunnels. You made a big show on the biggest night of the year in this asscrack town, and now we got surface people asking questions. I can make your life very long and very miserable if you stop cooperating."

His voice had a faint rasp to it, as if someone – or something – had tried to crush his neck.

She wasn't going to mess with someone who had survived that.

"My license has three thousand on it," she said.

He smiled. "That'll do, Berlitz. That'll do."

So what if she lost the League stipend - the last ounce of her money - at least she'd live. She shifted around until the card slid out of her pocket. Only once it fell did the chief pick it up. Huh – he actually learned something.

"Criminals," he muttered. "The League has resorted to registering criminals. Unbelievable."

He moved around to the front of the squad car to pick up a card scanner, taking his sweet time. He opened the door and said, "When I was your age, our duty was to cull the herds. I was very good at it. You can see how I got this job."

True – these days, police forces were mostly comprised of high-level trainers. After the fiasco with the Team Rocket, Unova, freaking about unrest among their neighbors in Orre, pressured the Ransei nations to bolster their police forces to root out gang activity. It didn't really work when the assholes who would have been in the gangs were now running law enforcement.

"Scientists say monsters have no brains. They have no thoughts. Nothing like our own. But, see, those scientists haven't gotten the field work I've had. Because then they'd know - monsters do think. They like killing. They do it for sport. They look into your eyes - and have fun."

He waited for a response. When she gave him nothing, he shut the glove compartment and returned to the backseat with his machines. "That's nature, Berlitz. The only way we can fight nature is with blood, and to get blood, the League needs trainers like you and me. But I believe we shouldn't just let anyone be a trainer. You want any old crook running around with monsters? They'll get themselves killed if they're weak, or they'll kill others. I believe—" He smiled at the completed transaction. "—that anyone with a monster and a criminal record should be shot on sight."

He released her cuffs and took her hands, placing the license in her palms and folding her fingers over it. But he didn't let go. He swept around to look at her right in the eye and said, "So don't waste my fucking time ever again," and let her go with a little laugh. She snatched up her belongings as the chief went around to open her door, and stumbled out of the car as he spoke.

"This was all a misunderstanding," he assured witnesses. "Please move along. You know how aggressive the Kricketune can be this time of year. We tended to her with swift medical attention—"

Her mom was at the head of the crowd. Looking right at her.

"—and we'd like to remind you to be extra careful around these parts. You never, never know what you might run into in these woods."

The officers and their hounds returned to their cars, some of them driving back to the memorial, others up the road to Sandgem. Without another word her mother grabbed her collar and yanked her home through the twisting streets. At this hour, the leering scarekrow in the open field looked more menacing, and the dark silhouettes of the power poles were like spears scattered on a battleground. The only light came from the paper lanterns dangling from clotheslines and cables, guiding their way home.

As soon as Dawn knocked off her shoes and shut the front door behind her, her mom yanked her so they were face-to-face, red-rimmed fury boiling in her eyes. "What the hell did you do to get arrested?"

"I wasn't arrested." At least, if the cops stuck criminal charges on her ID, there'd be hell to pay. "It was a misunderstanding. A Kricketune attacked."

"Really?"

"Really."

Lying was for her mom's own good, but it didn't make Dawn feel any better.

Her mom gestured to Dawn's jacket. "Is that your blood?"

"Yeah."

"What were you doing? Do you realize you could have gotten yourself killed? Do you realize—"

"I'm sorry."

"If I had to mourn for two—"

"That's not going to happen. Ever." Dawn, suprised at her own outburst, looked at her feet. "I had to go out. Just to see if I could catch something. Don't you get it? I just…had to."

"Dawn."

"Hm?"

Her mom pulled Dawn into a crushing hug. It didn't feel assuring at all but desperate, like making sure Dawn was still intact, like her mom wasn't sure if Dawn was real. She was held like that, and then her mom let go, looking exhausted and yet even angrier.

"Next time you plan on going to a place where you need to bring a stunner, consider not going."

"Mm."

Her mom shook her head, her expression wavering. "I was waiting for you." Her mom searched for words. "I waited for you for so long..."

"Mom?"

"Go to sleep."

"Mom—"

"I said, _go to sleep._ "

Dawn lingered for a few seconds longer, but her mom turned away. She didn't turn even as Dawn went up the stairs, closed the door, and thought of her mother's expression.

 _I screwed up._ She shut her eyes. _I really, really screwed up…_

All she could do was sleep.

\\-|-/

In the morning, her mouth was still raw and bitter. She moved to the edge of the bed with her foggy, aching head in her hands, the events of the night swirling into place—

The cops. The Electivire. The old man. The colosseum.

Her assets at a complete and total zero.

Her mom just about hated her - which was inevitable, but still painful.

In one night, she had just about died, set her life on fire, ramrodded her future into a dead end, and she had nothing—

Wait. She did have something. A pokeball. There was a pokeball in her jacket.

Chimchar.

She fished through the clothes at the foot of her bed until she grabbed her mucky and blood-stained jacket, her breath catching in her throat as she found the pokeball. She clenched it for another second longer, then activated it. With a flash of light, Chimchar was there - and alive. Still alive. His eyes were watchful and wary as he scanned his new environment, backing gradually until he bumped against the wall. He sprang around, his tail-fire sparking - still just an angry flicker - before he finally relaxed. His eyes widened at how soft the bed was.

She had waited so long for this day, since she had first seen Umbreon, following her around the house on a cool spring morning. She had waited so long - and had no clue what to say.

She went for the first thought that filled her head. "You did good last night."

He smirked, rolling his shoulders. He must've hung out underground long enough to learn a bit of human language. Good for him. It made her life easier.

He nudged her knee to get her attention, then swooped his body over her leg, his fists clenched. It took a minute for her to figure out what he was saying.  
"That was lucky," she said. "I'm not planning on getting myself killed for you again."

All the same - it wasn't nothing. Fighting and glory was in his blood, and every fighting-type had some strange sense of honor. It was one hell of a way to start a working relationship with one.

She got a better look at him - his hair stiff and tangled, his chest feeling bony when he rubbed against her leg. Where did he come from? Was he born Underground, or was he wild? Did he come from a lab?

She snorted at the last notion. Seemed like it would be the case. The old-ass professor spending his years on talk TV ranting about how _pokemon are by our side, always_ \- it would be some hypocrisy if he chucked his own breeding stock into a fight club for money. Even if that was the case, though, she couldn't complain.

Infernape were formidable beasts, and along with Empoleon they were the frontrunners of Sinnoh's army during the war. They were fragile - very fragile. There weren't so many of them left. But they made up for their vulnerability with pure, indomitable might. Flint's Infernape was a veteran of the war, and proved it in every fight with merciless, bone-shattering beatings and flamethrowers that melted skin from bone.

If Chimchar survived long enough - and he certainly seemed like a survivor - she'd get him to that point. Beyond that point. Her mind already buzzed with ideas, fantasies of overwhelming the Elite Four, strategies.

"Say, Chimchar. You're looking for power, and so am I. I'm going to become the champion, and with you, I think we'd get there a lot faster."

Champion - he probably associated that word with the big guys of the Underground, the predators, the ones who ate every night and were celebrated every day. He seemed to perk up at the mention, anyhow.

"When you become champion of Sinnoh, you run the country. Whatever you want, whatever you think - it's all yours. Everyone listens to you. Nobody tells you no. You fight the strongest monsters in the world. But it's a lot of work to get there. It takes a lot of sacrifices. But it's all worth it." She let that notion sit for a few seconds, then shrugged. "I mean, you don't have to do it. With or without you, I'm reaching the top—"

He swiped her hand with a furrowed brow, leaving a faint scratch before jabbing his thumb at himself and then the pokeball. Maybe he wasn't a talker, but he sure could communicate.

She smiled. "Then we got a lot of work to do and not much time to do it." She pushed herself onto her feet, and Chimchar tried following her, but she made a dismissive wave. "Relax - I'm getting us some food, first."

There really was a lot to do - figuring out what his current baseline of power was, and bringing it to the next level. Books she'd smuggled from the library for the past few years gave her ideas for training drills - accuracy, speed, evasion, strength, endurance, everything they'd need to get stronger. She went over her plans in her head as she went downstairs, but when she heard the television she tensed and hoped to god her mom still had it in her to work today - but when she heard cartoons zinging from the living room instead of the contest channel, she wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing.

Cartoons meant it wasn't mom - it was Jumpy. With all the chairs and cushions toppled around her in a makeshift den, the Kangaskhan looked like a fortress. Jumpy was totally absorbed in her show until Dawn poked her head in.

"Morning," Dawn said, trying to sound casual. She went to the fridge and poured out a glass of Miltank milk for Chimchar - judging from his ragged look, it was safer to start him with liquids for a few days in case he had a bad reaction to solids. She distracted herself with this, otherwise she could only notice the prickly feeling of Jumpy eyeing her like a possible breakfast.

There was only one reason her mom would leave Jumpy behind. As a test, Dawn approached the doorway, reached out her hand, and sprang away as Jumpy's roar snapped through the kitchen. The Kangaskhan leaned out from the living room doorway, showing off two sledgehammer fists and rows of teeth made for turning her victims into mush.

When a man had pulled a pistol on her parents once in Jubilife, her family was stuck in court for months after Jumpy sent his ass into the stratosphere with one Comet Punch.

Dawn wasn't looking for an early grave, but she'd get one anyway if she couldn't train Chimchar. They needed to get outside, but Jumpy sure as hell wasn't going to let them go. Unless Dawn sweetened the deal.

 _Sorry, Mom,_ she thought, _but you're not stopping me now._

She approached the cabinet. "Hey, Jumpy," she called. "I'm heading to the lake today for a bit of training. And for lunch."

Jumpy rumbled in response, but cut off as the cabinet hinges squealed. Dawn smiled to herself as she imagined Jumpy's widening eyes and heard her tail thump.

Stuffed way in the back of the cabinet and buried under medicine bottles was a bag of poffins. Baked by her mother, just in case they needed to bribe Jumpy to do something she didn't want to do.

"And, hey," Dawn said, holding up the bag. "What's a lunch without poffins?"

\\-|-/

Okay. Lying to her mom, sneaking out, stealing her food – that was bad enough. The only thing worse was nearly bringing down the entire house when she brought Chimchar to introduce him to Jumpy, because Jumpy thought he was some small creature she needed to carry in her pouch, while Chimchar thought she was another colosseum monster to fight. It took ten minutes of wrestling Chimchar and prodding Jumpy with the stunner before they broke down the wall, which they nearly did anyway when Dawn had to squeeze Jumpy out the front door.

But they survived. Nothing broke. They hustled into the woods and snuck out of Twinleaf to the forest surrounding the lake, where Jumpy grazed on grass and Dawn tried to convince Chimchar to work with her. The key word was tried.

"You gotta do a general test for me. I need to see what you're capable of out here." It was possible he was an Underground veteran, but she couldn't be too sure. She nodded towards an obstacle course she had set up. "Run this and I'll give you lunch."

He pointed at his open mouth.

"No - you eat after you run."

He huffed through his nose. Her life would have been much easier if she could just look up behavior reinforcement strategies, except Twinleaf didn't have a working internet. As of now, residents had to head to Sandgem to get any kind of connection.

It kind of sucked. But monster tamers of the olden days didn't have reference guides. She'd manage.

"You're not going to get any better if you don't do this," she said.

She snapped around when she heard leaves crunching - it was just Jumpy stomping through some old growth, her tail wagging as she watched a Bidoof bound away. Dawn relaxed and glanced back, pulling a double-take when she saw Chimchar rummaging through the bag. "Drop that," she snapped. When he didn't, she yanked the bag away, but pulled him up with it, and he leapt onto her, slashing her arm with a snarl.

 _"Tsss—!"_ She flung him off, staring at him in the eyes when he twisted back up.

Jumpy made a concerned croon. "Stay out of it, Jumpy." She didn't dare blink as Chimchar stared. "Look, you want to fight me? Then let's fight."

Chimchar crouched into a jump but she threw herself down, pinning him under her hand. He squirmed and squirmed but she didn't let up, and she remembered, for some reason, that this was what her dad used to do with her, when she got too rambunctious—

And in her moment of distraction, Chimchar chomped on her fingers.

"Ow! _Owowowowowow—!_ " She swung her hand around as Chimchar gnashed her fingertips, refusing to loosen up. "Why are you biting me you're a fire-type not a dark-type you stupid—!" Her hand whipped to her waist and smashed him with the stunner, firing a sting through her fingertips and sending him flying into a pile of dirt and leaves.

Her breath caught in her throat as she laid eyes on him. He was unconscious.

He was small. The stunner was on a low setting, but he was small. Underweight.

She felt sick.

 _Make them fear you. Make them need you._ But there wasn't that satisfaction from a job well done. It wasn't even like prodding Jumpy when she was misbehaving - just annoying her, but not killing her. It felt like Dawn's gut had become a hole.

She sat beside Chimchar until he stirred, about a minute later. He blinked with dizziness, but glowered at her anyway, trying to prop himself on his elbows.

"I told you to drop the bag." She kept her voice even and firm. Part of her considered telling him, _I didn't want to do that_ \- but this was a monster she was dealing with. If people went soft on monsters early on, they couldn't control them later. Untamed monsters went nuts and massacred and terrorized humans, with their so-called trainers helpless to stop them.

She had to keep firm. But she sheathed the stunner. "Disobey me again, and you'll get shocked, _and_ you won't be fed. I'm telling you - if you don't listen to me, we're not going to get any better. And we're not going to survive. But if you do listen to me, there's a lot we can accomplish together."

He looked up at her, but kept his head bowed.

"Look, you're hungry, but if you eat now, you're gonna hurt yourself when you start running around. It's better you eat after you finish your exercises. You don't believe me, you can try it out on your own time, but right now, we're working."

She had hoped she wouldn't need to start off training with a slap fight for dominance. It was necessary for some pokemon, but if that was all their relationship was based on, then when Chimchar could breathe fire, he would challenge her again, and defeating him wouldn't be such a sure thing. There were other ways of strengthening their mutual respect. And she had to start on that now.

She held out her hand. Chimchar glared at it for some time before gingerly taking her finger. He held it for a few seconds, as if he were weighing something in his mind, but ultimately hoisted himself onto his feet.

"Let's go." She stood up, smirking as he shot her a questioning look. "What, you thought you were going through this alone?"

\\-|-/

He didn't object after that, but he wasn't exactly her best friend. Good. She didn't need a best friend - she needed someone who would listen.

Over the weeks, she found his strength to be good for his stature - he was fast, and he actually made Jumpy squawk in pain if he got in a good surprise attack, but he couldn't handle a gentle flick of her tail without collapsing. Certainly, Chimchar weren't defensive tanks, but if he couldn't survive one good hit, let alone a dozen, their dreams were dead.

There was also the question of his fire abilities - even after he regained some weight, the flame for his tail wasn't up to snuff. She had to really goad him to get him to breathe fire, and even then, a lighter was more menacing than the sparks he cracked out.

"You can't be embarrassed," she told him. "You just have to keep working on it. You're strong - you really are - but eventually we're going to run into someone who we can only finish off with some firepower. So c'mon, let's try it again."

And he did. Now and then, he spat more fire, blew flaming pellets in a wider arc - and that was good enough.

At one point during the week, she scared some bickering Starly towards Chimchar for him to work on fast-striking, and he caught one in his claws and scrambled with it in a small battle. She'd taught him about ripping off a Starly's comb to scare it off, how to redirect its beak if it tried to gouge his eyes - and now he seemed keen on testing things out for himself. She alternated between watching him and throwing some punches at the air to loosen up her arms, but snapped back into attention when she felt him tug at her pants. "Hey, good job," she said, kneeling down.

Instead of puffing up his chest, he grabbed her hand. She flexed it, expecting him to attack - but instead he held her fist, tightening her fingers, tapping her knuckles. Strike with the knuckles, he was saying. Steady wrists.

"Yeah," she said. "Thanks."

Satisfied, he walked off to challenge Jumpy to another fight. Dawn didn't screw up her punches again.

Those weeks also taught her more about his tastes. She read that wepears were good for digestive health, but one bite out of the box her mom had bought made Chimchar spew out the remains and chuck the fruit at her head while she was trying to jot down what they accomplished that day. It sparked another scuffle, this time on the carpet, where they bludgeoned each other with her pillow (it wasn't very effective) before frantically bashing it on the fire he lit on the carpet. By the end of it all she was so giddy about his improved Ember that she'd forgotten what they had fought over until she saw the fruit, and just jotted down the note - _nothing bitter/sour?_ She read it again, and thought: _You and me both, dude._

Her days went smoothly, even if her nights were just long hours of stiff silence. She cooked dinner, finding that Chimchar was a fan of her almost too-hot tamato sauce, but it didn't get any kind of reaction out of her mother other than an unusually unfinished plate. Her days were smooth, they were okay - until she started running out of poffins. One Saturday evening, when her mother was at work and the poffin bag was empty, she sent Chimchar up to rest and stayed downstairs to bake.

She thought it would be easy, following a recipe stashed in one of her mom's folders, but the batter didn't run, even as she dumped in milk and fumbled with the heat and churned the spoon. Eventually, it wasn't moving at all. She yanked and tugged the spoon, pulling out the entire batter, which had become a giant black brick.

"Oh c'mon," she muttered through gritted teeth, thumping the mutant poffin against the counter to no avail, and then realizing that the heat was still on and smoke was pouring out of the pot and even though she shut off the heat and chucked the pot out the window it was _still_ burning—

"Dawn! What are you doing?!"

Dawn felt every inch of her shrink as her mom balked at her in the kitchen doorway. "Poffins."

"Poffins?" Her mom's panic turned to skepticism, but even that died as she approached the counter, observing the splattered warzone across the laminate. "Dawn Berlitz, making poffins…" Her eyes fell on the batter. "…and failing miserably."

"C'mon," Dawn said quietly. "You shut me in here all day and I get a little stir-crazy. Gotta do something with my time, right?"

"Seems like you're not getting stir-crazy enough. You gotta really work it!" Her mom mimed stirring for good measure before kicking off her house slippers. "Give me that."

Dawn handed over the poffin, watching her mom whip out a kitchen knife and chop up the blotched mess. "Jumpy will be more than happy with this," her mom said, "but it wouldn't stand in any professional kitchen, and it's not going to stand in mine. Which recipe are you following?" She glanced at the paper with a grimace. "Okay, Dawn, the first thing you need to know is that your handwriting is awful—"

"It's not my writing! It's yours!"

Her mom squinted at the words. "Huh! Wow, that's a blast from the past. Okay, the first thing you need to know is that this recipe is _terrible_ , and that I keep the good ones down in this drawer. What are you making? Sour? I stick with a sweet batter to balance it out, but your job right now is to cut things up - yes, go on, cut, and I'm going to heat up the pot—"

She wasn't sure what to expect, but her mom salvaged the operation. Dawn learned to stir like _this_ , not like _that_ , the wild adjustments to the heat were much easier with another set of hands, and with her mom at the helm, they didn't make the batter splash or explode once. All the while her mother chattered aimlessly, sometimes about the batter, sometimes about work, sometimes asking Dawn for her opinion on something, until they pulled over chairs from the kitchen table and sat down at the end, watching the shimmering heat from the poffins in the oven.

"Sounds like you had an exciting day," Dawn said.

"Exciting is the least of it," her mom muttered while putting down her hair. "Now, what have you been doing with your days, Miss Berlitz?"

"Stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Trying out my new stomping dance routine with Jumpy. Converting my room to a Cincinno farm." She folded her hands, sitting back. "Actually, I've been working on an essay for school."

"Really? What's it about?"

"Uh...comparing and contrasting the sun gods from different regions. I'm starting off with something about Cherrim—"

"It wasn't really a sun _god_ , though—"

"But people did rituals with it for sunlight, so I'll talk a little bit about that. But really, the bulk of my paper's on Groudon. The teacher is into that sect, so I figured - you know. He'd appreciate it."

Yeah - there was no essay. She wasn't going to school. But they were ideas she'd considered in the past, when she still believed in myths, and seeing her mother smile was enough.

"Groudon, huh? Remember when Palmer came home that day?"

'That day' was unforgettable, with her and Barry and Piplup trying to sleep on the floor next to several fans not just for the wind, but the noise. People outside, screaming at the sun, screaming about the end of the world, their ruckus eventually cutting over the fans and waking them up. For days, none of them allowed themselves to make any noise, even as Piplup was miserable, Barry fidgeted, and Dawn came close to exploding. Hell - Pokemon Special wasn't even on. There was nothing but getting slowly fried in the heat.

That was when Barry's dad burst through the window on his Dragonite, drawing a scream from his wife as he hopped down, his hair overgrown and wild like a Luxray's mane, his arms full of Groudon idols. "Sinnoh's wrong, Unova's wrong, Hoenn's right," he yelled, dropping the idols, "so we are sitting out asses down and praying."

Dawn's mom bawled him out, not so much for the sudden conversion than the cussing. Barry and Dawn didn't care so much about which god was which than the fact that Palmer hadn't died, that they were all together - that they were safe. Barry's house blew up with its usual noise, Piplup strutting through stifling heat and Barry and his dad chattering at ten miles a minute - and things felt normal.

It didn't seem like a coincidence that the cool night had finally fallen at the end of that day.

"Yeah, I remember." Dawn smiled. "Is he still into Groudon?"

"Who isn't?"

"If you ask me, I'm not sure if I'd think so highly of a god that let itself get caught by an eleven-year-old."

"Hah." Her mom stared off into space. "The world's really changed. It's scarier than it was when I was your age."

"The only thing that's gotten scarier is you," Dawn said, grinning.

"I have to be, considering who I live with. Anyway, I can tell you one thing that hasn't changed - spicy-sweet poffins."

Dawn grimaced. "I don't like the sound of this."

"I swear, Dawn, it's great. You still have some tamatoes, right? Go on, get it ready, I swear this will taste great and it's gonna take a while to cut up everything—"

"I was supposed to make dinner, though."

"Oh." Her mom surveyed the apocalyptic mess they'd slopped up the entire kitchen with, pursing her lips. "Pizza sound good?"

Dawn couldn't resist the smile. "Pizza sounds great."

In the end, spicy and sweet didn't work for Dawn, but she brought up some leftovers, even as her mom teased her with, _See? Admit it, you like it!_ Strangely, when she opened the door to her room, Chimchar had his ear pinned to the floor before whipping his head up, acting like he'd been bored all along.

"Got something for you," she said. "Since you've been good."

Chimchar devoured his pizza before sniffing one of the poffins and taking a cautionary nibble. His face lit up and he shoved huge chunks of the cake in his mouth before hunting down every fallen crumb. Dawn grinned at his enthusiasm, and when he was through, even though he didn't do much to deserve it, she gave him another one.

She couldn't forget about him listening to their ruckus, though. She expected him to sleep or climb around in her closet or something, but instead...

"You feel lonely, Chimchar?"

He stiffened for a second - just a split-second - before shaking his head vehemently, puffing his crumb-covered cheeks.

"I get it, I get it." She poked his shoulder. "Come on, let's do a little exercise. Together."

After all, they had all that pizza to work off.

\\-|-/

The days went by smoother, faster. After saying goodbye to her mom in the mornings, Dawn snuck out and trained all day. She spent some evenings with Chimchar in his pokeball, hidden in her pocket, so he could at least be with her in spirit. He seemed to like that more than being left in her room.

One early morning, some distance near the lake, Dawn released Chimchar while holding a handful of acorns. "Thinking about accuracy this time. I throw things, you set them in fire. Sound good?" He made a sullen snort, but gave in. "You really don't like it, do you? But it's important."

She threw the acorns in a wide arc, Chimchar nailing a few with some good sparks that Jumpy eagerly stomped out. Sure, it wasn't the moving targets of a high-tech training facility, but it was something.

She went to gather some other targets, but stopped when she noticed something - the forest was silent. No chittering Bidoof. No rustling leaves, no flapping wings. Nothing.

It could have been some hunters. Except hunters didn't make the woods go quiet.

She took out her stunner, switching the intensity as high as it would go, so a current crackled at the end. Chimchar's fire flashed as he glanced around, while Jumpy sniffed the ground, then the air.

None of them saw it coming.

Claws ripped into Dawn's shoulders as a shrieking _"Kraaaaaaah!"_ pierced her ears, and she smashed her stunner overhead as slashes tore her skin - but she heard a good crack as the monster released her with a cry, tatters of her sweater and blood flying with it. Dawn spun around just as Jumpy snatched the charred Staravia out of the air and pulverized it with her glowing fists, then reared back to bellow a challenge to whoever was coming—

And the challenge came. Dark shadows flocked among the branches above. It was an entire thrash of birds, led by a fat Staravia with a nearly complete comb.

Oh, super. A big fat family reunion dropped by rip up their asses.

Dawn grabbed Chimchar's pokeball and jammed the button as the birds screeched and plunged from the trees, but the ball wasn't working and they were all going for Chimchar who had his claws ready—

"Chimchar, run!"

She hefted and threw a rock as Chimchar sped around the trees, their efforts breaking up the mob as Jumpy flew in with electric fists to scare off Starly and punch out a screaming Staravia, and Dawn wondered, desperately, _why isn't the ball working why isn't it working why isn't it working—_

She charged after Chimchar, the larger predators swooping down after him, and with her stunner at the ready she swung her arms around, screams and snaps and the stench of charred feahers filling the air. Some birds flew, some away, some right into her face, but a flurry of fire scared off the rest of the cowards. But Chimchar snarled as the leader joined the mob ripping at Jumpy, and Dawn charged into the brawl in time to hear Jumpy howl as blood came out of her fist.

It wasn't the blood that was terrifying - it was Jumpy. Froth spilled from her jaws as she clapped her hands around the Staravia and snapped its neck, then finished it with a stomp as she snapped up two other birds - it wasn't the goofy Kangaskhan who played hide and seek with her and Barry when they were little - but this was not the time to think.

Dawn rolled out of the mob and fried a bird flying her way, narrowly weaved around another Staravia as a gob of fire engulfed its wing, Chimchar leaping to rip off its comb - it was a mad, dizzying dance as she bashed and swung through a flurry of feathers and leaves and wounds across her body, and with one final crunch under Jumpy's foot, the birds were dead or gone.

The three of them took some deep breaths. Dawn cringed her nose at the stench. Chimchar didn't seem to mind. She surveyed the damage, feeling uneasy - it wasn't like the time the local hunters taught her and Barry how to trap and hunt. To save her life, she had to take others. And taking them had come so easy…

 _That's the law of nature,_ she assured herself. _Just how life works._

The Luxray would feast tonight. She didn't want to be the main course.

"Let's get out of here," Dawn called, shoving aside brambles and leafy branches. It wasn't far to the lake, which shimmered under the sun. Calm, unwavering, and still.

 _So much for a Lake Guardian, huh._ She sighed through her teeth. _You gotta save your own life around these parts…_

No. Not just her own.

Chimchar crawled onto her shoe so he could see where she was looking. His mouth twisted, not looking all that thrilled at the prospect of water.

Smiling, she gently shook her foot. "See? Told you there was a point to all that."

Chimchar swiped her toes with his claws, but this time, when he looked back up, he was smiling.

\\-|-/

She got them home and cleaned up, healing Jumpy and Chimchar with a hyper potion stashed in the first aid kit and filling the rest of the bottle with water to cover her tracks. She showered, gazed at the scrubbed blood swirling into the drain, changed and dumped her ripped clothes in the garbage, started a fire that licked up the chimney, and managed to be in the kitchen in time for her mom to come home.

"Hey, Dawn! I took some of your extras into work. I think you should consider a career change!"

"Nah," Dawn said, smiling, trying to ease her nerves. "Too much effort."

"Speaking of effort, that was work today - hell on _earth!_ But hey, it's the weekend. What do you say we go out and do something before school starts?"

School started in August. She had one more week. There was nothing that would prevent how livid her mom would be at the end of summer break, when everything would go wrong, when Dawn knew she had to leave.

So she'd have to make the most of it. "Sounds good." Dawn stirred the pot, tasting the sauce. "We're having spaghetti, by the way."

"Again?"

"What, should I try making it with spicy-sweet sauce?"

"I was hoping for something besides spagetti."

"I've been busy, Mom. You don't like it, make your own dinner."

"If you don't like my attitude, get your own job." Her mom patted her shoulder with a cheeky grin. "Then you'll understand."

Dawn got their plates ready as the phone rang, which her mother picked up and took to the living room. There was a lot of extra sauce – Chimchar deserved something extra for fighting the Starly mob.

 _We're just about ready,_ Dawn thought. At least, there wasn't much else they could accomplish here.

She kept checking the clock while her mom was on the phone. Five minutes. Ten. The cartoons had switched into the news, which kept Dawn from eavesdropping. Eventually, she gave up and sat down with her plate, taking her first bite just as her mother came in.

"Where's the tuition payment?"

Well.

So much for the end of the month.

"I don't have it. It's gone."

"You spent it?"

"It was stolen."

"But you hid the check."

"I cashed it."

"Excuse me?"

"Because - well - okay. I'm not going to school. I got my license and I'm heading out next week."

"No. _No._ " Her mom was aghast. "Do you know what you're saying?"

"Yes, I'm saying I don't want to be a nun or a politician, so I'm not going to school. Lots of people don't. I mean—" She racked her mind for a name. "There's Flint—"

"Out of all the people in the planet you could have picked to convince me, you pick Flint Nara?"

"Forget about him, then! I, uh, I can be a coordinator. You watch contests all the time, right? It's - I'm not going to lose. The way I'm going, we won't have to worry about money. I mean - can we even afford school? Maybe we could afford one semester, but four years? When I joined the League, I got this big stipend, and every time I win a fight I get more money—"

Her mom slammed the table hard enough to knock over Dawn's water. "Listen to me! Being a trainer - it's not like what they tell you. You live in a nightmare, but you convince yourself you're living a dream—"

"I know what I'm getting myself into."

Her mother's eyes flared. It was just a tiny thing, but the graceful, iron-like poise showing its cracks made Dawn's stomach skitter. "It's not like those stupid cartoons. Never mind the wild pokemon, the people who live in the wild, they're psychotic—"

"Oh, so Dad's psychotic, now?"

" _Yes!_ Yes! Do you remember him? Do you know how fights end? Do you remember that night? Do you remember why no one cared?"

"That night prompted a new series of regulations, which, let me tell you, I owned that essay question on the licensing exam—"

"Do you know how fights end?"

Dawn tried to speak - _of course I know how fights end._ They ended with one side or the other in a bloody heap, they ended with bruises on your knuckles at best and all over you at worst, and you either got stronger, or you died, and that was the law of the wild—

But none of those words found their way out.

It was hard to breathe.

 _Anyone can be your enemy,_ her father had said. _Even those you think you know. Even those you love._

She looked away from her mom.

 _She's not my enemy._

She looked back.

 _Is she?_

Her mom wanted the best for her. Dawn told herself that. Her mom wanted the best - but this wasn't it. If Dawn stayed here - smothered between two small towns crushed between a cop's fists, where everyone was always trying to leave - hell, Barry's family had left, Dawn's dad had said they were going to leave, there was nothing left in Twinleaf anymore except for kids, widows, widowers and old people, the people who couldn't survive the trek to Sandgem…

"If I stay here - I'm not going to make it."

"Excuse me?"

Dawn grabbed her napkin, mopping up the spilled water. "I'm sorry, but if I back down now, everything Dad did will go to waste—"

Her mother's open hand smashed her face, almost toppling Dawn off the chair. The look on her mother's face said her instincts had reacted way before her brain did, like whenever she'd heard Dawn shrieking out of play - or worse. The stillness, the resounding crack, it felt like the the moment she saw a flash of lightning, and waited—

"Chaaaar!"

—for the boom.

She didn't know where Chimchar came from, but she snatched him up before he clawed her mom, but had already broken through the doorway. Dawn threw herself back just as Jumpy punched the kitchen table, splitting wood and dust and spaghetti all over the room. The whole house was a mayhem of her mom's shouting and Jumpy's bellowing as Dawn held the thrashing Chimchar to her chest with one hand, hollering at him to "Stay! Stay here!" as she she shielded her eyes from debris with the other—

The dust settled, Jumpy looming with her foot hovering over Chimchar - and over Dawn's chest. Her mother had her body halfway blocking Jumpy's torso, and her eyes were wide, like she'd never expected that behavior out of her lifelong companion.

Life became sharper in that moment - the peeling white walls, the door blasted out of its hinges, her mom's old bullwhip hanging on the wall, the boom of Jumpy's foot as she thumped it back on the floor, the water and spaghetti sauce dripping, the sticky tiles against Dawn's skirt.

Her shoulders ached.

Her hands felt weak.

Chimchar squirmed out of her grip and tugged her elbow, glaring at her mom and Jumpy.

"I'm going to bed," Dawn said.

There were no more words. There was nothing to say. There was nothing left to finish and nothing to begin.

She thought she'd feel anger, but as she forced herself upstairs, Chimchar climbing ahead and looking back at her after each step, she only felt numb.

She didn't feel to the long lash of fury, hot and deadly, coiling in her body - tensing up. Ready to explode. Ready to burn.

\\-|-/

When she couldn't sleep, she pulled out her comic book about Beowulf, the hero of Sinnoh, long before there were ever concepts like the Ransei Union or Unova.

Her father had told her fairy tales of each region having its own king or queen, their station bestowed by the gods themselves, with the money and influence to grant any wish. That wish was only given up to the one who would give everything to serve the king - the champion.

That was how the League began: with one boy's journey across the savage and war-torn Sinnoh, besting eight deities in combat and earning a relic from each, dispatching each of his enemies with a pack of monsters he tamed. That boy became a man, Beowulf, who was given the accolade of a knight and of a champion, carrying out the will of one of several warlords. He won his king the war that unified Sinnoh with only his sword and an army of monsters. Beowulf, more than anyone, had power. No one questioned him, no one stood against him, no one kept him pinned down.

It followed that there would eventually be no king, but only a champion. Centuries after Beowulf, when Kalos's king destroyed his own kingdom in a nonsensical war, when Unova deposed its royal family in a wild revolution, the kingdoms collapsed. The champions came out on top. But none had matched Beowulf.

That night, rereading his story for the thousandth time, Dawn didn't pay attention to the words so much as she did the pictures - Beowulf meeting Naegling as a puppy, him wrestling an Ursaring into joining him, his investiture as the king's champion, him crossing the mountains and the oceans and the world and beyond.

But she did read one panel, where Beowulf gazed upon Naegling evolving into an enormous Arcanine and uttered, _These monsters are truly the heirs of the gods._

Dawn became stuck one another sequence, with Naegling howling his fury and Beowulf looking grim and savage, a Grendel's arm dripping blood on his hair and the castle floor. Up until that night she thought she knew all about blood, but she couldn't tear away from those drawings.

She thought about her Dad's championship match. She imagined the police coming around to bully her mom.

Grendels were extinct - as extinct as Arcanine in Sinnoh - but other monsters thrived.

When she couldn't take it anymore she found her dad's book about Siegfried and hoped its walls of text would put her to sleep. When they didn't, and when the nausea didn't leave, Dawn gave up and switched off the lamp - but there was still a warm light flickering next to her. Chimchar.

Dawn read that Chimchar were supposed to put out their fires at night, but this guy kept trying to make his light up - it was still weak, small, and desperate. When he realized she was staring, he rolled over to give her a dirty look.

He wasn't giving up. She wasn't letting go of her promise.

Maybe the whole story of a king and a wish was a fairy tale, but the power wasn't.

There were eight gym leaders they had to crush. Four elites to overwhelm - the Gatekeeper, the Guerrilla, the Gladiator, the Grandmaster.

And then there was the champion.

"You'd better get some sleep," she said to Chimchar, pulling up the covers. "We're leaving at dawn."

She would make them all fear her.

She would make them all respect her.

And she would make the world tremble.

* * *

 **a/n:** sorry for the long chapter - this was once two chapters, but ultimately i prefer getting dawn into the meat of the story sooner rather than later. that said, do you guys have preferences on chapter lengths? i'll never be able to go under 4000 words, but do people like longer chapters, shorter chapters, somewhere in the middle?

just to clarify, "the ransei union" refers to kanto, johto, hoenn, and sinnoh as a political alliance. that doesn't necessarily make pokemon conquest canon in this verse - honestly, i just needed a name, and there it was.

anyway - many thanks to the reviewers, and to you, the reader. hope you enjoyed.


	4. the long road

**3**. _the long road_

* * *

Dawn woke up after just a few hours, when it was still dark. She got dressed, wrote a note to her mom, and finished just as Chimchar began to stir. When he was fully awake, he grabbed her knotted scarf, and she climbed onto the windowsill, looking everywhere but down.

If she jumped, she could make it to the sycamore tree across from her house. No - she wasn't going to slip. She wasn't going to fall. She wasn't going to crack her head on the ground.

She was going to make it.

...It just seemed a lot easier before climbing out the window.

"Ready?"

Chimchar nodded.

She hesitated for a second longer, pressing her feet onto the solid surface, and then kicked herself off the window into a soaring jump.

The ground veered up to meet her, but at the last second she snatched one of the tree's lower branches. Gravity yanked her down and the thrashing branch whipped her up, nearly breaking her sweaty grip as she twisted her body and kicked her legs and finally threw all her limbs onto the branch, and once she felt secure - as secure as being upside-down could feel - she allowed herself to breathe.

"Go, Chimchar," she said. "Don't fall."

He darted up her arm to the branch, following her from above as she inched herself towards the trunk. It wasn't hard - as long as she didn't open her eyes.

Thunderpunches, Staravia, her mother's deadly gaze - all of that, and it was a tree that was making her hands tremble. Unbelievable.

While she was struggling not to throw up, she considered their options. Money would be easy to get; that wasn't a concern. She hadn't found anything worth pawning in her room - the computer wouldn't survive the two or three-day trek to Sandgem - but Jubilife had plenty of trainers to fight. She didn't have much in the way of clothes, but what she had on was enough for now. As for food, Chimchar could just fry the local fauna. So they would be fine. They would be just fine.

That just left her mother.

 _...I'll call._ Once at the trunk, she opened her eyes to help her get a solid grip with her fingers and toes. _I'll call once there's some distance between us._

Jubilife - no, not there. Big as it was, her mom would have no issues in tracking her down. Eterna would be better. Or maybe—

Her toes slipped.

She crashed into the roots, pain flaring in her lower back and half-healed shoulders as a shrieking whinny pierced the air - crap. That was the old doctor's Rapidash! She scrambled towards her boots with a lopsided stomach, ignoring Chimchar's cackles until she got them on and the stupid monkey _still_ hadn't come down, and the lights next door were coming on—

"Come on!" she snapped. "We don't have time for this! Look—" She saw shadows in the windows. "Dammit!"

She took off, and Chimchar slammed down on her head. There wasn't any time to cuss him out or yell in pain - she just ran.

She plowed through Twinleaf's fields and streets with an intensity that rivalled Barry's, her heart lurching and Chimchar bouncing on her head as she passed underneath the tight arch of branches at the town's entrance and stopped at the grass, breathless and quiet, and the open, cloudy night all around her.

Route 201. The road to the whole world. It didn't matter she was going into this with a monkey clinging to her scalp - nothing seemed impossible. Just like that day - Barry urging her to follow, _c'mon, are we just gonna mope around and do nothing or are we gonna be pokemon masters?!_

She forced herself to stop thinking. It didn't matter what happened then, or what happened yesterday. It was all about what happened now.

She stepped through the grass, her knees still visible at the thinnest parts, then disappearing entirely.

Before she knew it, they were long gone.

\\-|-/

When Dawn's mother had been young, the grass surrounding Hearthome had been so dense, sharp and tall that trainers needed to ride Rapidash just to see. The grass wasn't so bad here, where police cars, supply trucks and trainers heading to Lake Verity kept the grass from getting too high, but everything else was as uncontrollable as ever. Cut down a tree, it sprang back after a few days. Clear some fallen rocks, and no one knew why, but you'd return and find even more stones taking their place. Kill a monster, ten more would spring up, hungry for revenge.

Trainers kept the beasts at bay. Trainers kept the world from turning utterly savage.

Which was why the trip so unnerving.

Trainers didn't patrol this route, so the monsters ran wild. But as Dawn walked, no matter how far, no matter what time, the grass didn't rustle. The trees didn't move. The route was silent, except for her.

Sometimes a Kricketune's detached claw crunched under her foot. Sometimes the wind tossed snowflakes in her face. Sometimes there was the popping cinders of the cooking fire Chimchar started. Every now and then she spoke just to have some noise. Otherwise - relentlessly quiet. And unmoving.

On the first day, their only encounters had been with a Starly who turned tail the second it saw them, and a Kricketune in the late evening that caught them off-guard after hours of solitude. They weren't hurt, dispatched the monster with strafing Embers and Dawn running interference, but the encounter startled Dawn enough to keep her awake for most of the night, her sluggish and fearful thoughts gnawed by sore muscles and the cold.

They needed a tent. They needed cooking supplies. They had to reach Sandgem to get them - that kept her walking.

But they also needed food.

When no monsters showed up during the second day, she and Chimchar trashed logs and leafy bushes to find something for dinner. They only found one clicking, jittering Kricketot, unmoving even as she picked it up. It didn't even try fighting back.

They settled down to start the cooking fire, splitting the Kricketot between them. Chimchar got his share first, enough to fill his belly, and Dawn had the remains. It wasn't enough to fill her, but the bitter and hot meat quieted her pained, growling stomach, and exhaustion seeped into her muscles.

"Your turn to sleep," she said. "I'll wake you when we switch."

Chimchar's shoulders slumped with relief. He curled up on the ground and shut his eyes, his breathing slowing almost instantly.

She wished she could sleep like that.

Yeah - she needed a sleeping bag. That was the first thing. Never mind the tent, never mind the cooking stuff - she would buy the best sleeping bag on the market, soft and cushy and warm, and—

No no no - no sleeping. She forced her eyes wide open, stabbing the fire to keep it going. Monsters must've been waiting for them to put their guard down. They were just hiding. Waiting.

 _We need to catch something._ She crossed her arms. _A Hoothoot. Something nocturnal. Something that'll wake us up. Something…_

She shut her eyes in thought.

 _Something that can see ghosts…_

The fire was so warm…

 _Something…_

\\-|-/

 _Have you ever met a trainer who's outfoxed death?_

 _Have you, monkey girl?_

Someone was speaking. It wasn't Dawn because her mouth couldn't move.

The woman was there. Hypno woman. But her eyes were red, not dark. Glowing.

 _You think you can keep running?_

Dawn couldn't move.

It was pitch-black and she couldn't move.

 _It knows where you are, monkey girl._

The woman was coming her mouth was opening so wide

 _It's coming_ her woman's voice was so high it was like a scream it was speeding up _It sees you its blood runs among the stars_ _and youcan'tescapethestars_ —

Dawn couldn't move shecouldn'tmove she couldn't

 _It'scomingit'scomingit'scomiiiIIIIIING_ —

"AAAAAAAH!"

The shriek made Dawn jolt awake in the dead dark, and Chimchar jumped up, too. Her hands trembled, not because of the cold, but that - that noise.

They glanced at each other before Dawn darted closer to the route to get a better look. She pressed her back against a tree trunk and peered around the side, shielding her eyes from two bright lights.

There were voices - faint snatches, gasping breaths, mumbling. People from the Underground? Hunters? Kids on a dare?

"Did you see that?! Did you see that? Where the hell did it go?!"

"Shut up! Get back here!"

"Holy fuck, you think that was a ghost? You think it knows—?"

"I said _shut up!_ "

It was a car. People were driving a car. She leaned further around, stumbling over a gnarled root and breaking some fallen branches.

"Shit - you hear that?"

"Get back in the car! Get back in here!"

Dawn snapped on the stunner before stepping out of the woods. "Hey, what's—"

She leapt backwards as the car screeched past her, narrowly missing her feet and kicking up a blast of wind that made her heart crash against her bones. Her legs shook in spite of herself as she got back on her feet, holding a tree for support as the car roared down the steep incline and out of sight, the ripped-up dirt and the lingering smoke the only sign of its presence.

"God. Probably - probably some idiots on a drug run." She rubbed her face. "Let's get out of here, Chimchar." Her eyes fell on him. "…Chimchar?"

He was motionless. His ear was trained towards the woods. Slowly, he turned his whole body to face whatever he had heard, his fire sparking.

She put her hand to her side. On the stunner. Ready to go.

But she wasn't ready for the dark blur and the cracking impact sending Chimchar flying into a snowdrift. She didn't know what the hell it was but with an unbreakable grip she swung down the stunner like a guillotine - but the impact wasn't soft. It jolted through her arms like she'd whacked a tree, making her stagger back, squinting at the upright monster - it was a Bidoof. Its fur was wet and glossy, its head facing her way with eyes gleaming darkly under the moon.

Just a Bidoof. Kids hurt them because of their helplessness, used them as the first step to overcoming the basic, primal fear of monsters. Dawn never needed those games, but the fact of the matter remained - there was no taking those pointless buck teeth as a serious threat, or taking those nubby little paws as anything other than the useless weapons of nature's most pathetic monster.

She told herself that - the words of the hunters who taught all the kids in Twinleaf how to survive. She tried convincing herself. But she remembered those late summer games, kids chasing down the Bidoof under supervision from their parents - when there were still so many parents in Twinleaf - sometimes she joined the chase so she could feel like one of the gang. How she always she felt sick and walked away before the end of the game - and was so certain it was because she was weak and scared, and kept coming back for the next round.

It never got better. She never stopped being sick.

"Okay," she said. "You go that way. We'll go this way."

She backed away, holding up her hands. Bidoof's head moved with her, and it relaxed its paws, looking ready to drop back on all fours - until Chimchar plummeted from the overhanging tree with swinging claws and a battlecry.

"Chimchar! Wait!"

The Bidoof's eyes widened and it snapped into a tight ball before Chimchar made contact. With every slashing flurry, Chimchar's nails snapped and dinged again and again against the shimmering liquid flowing and hardening across the fur. Chimchar grit his teeth and backed up, eyes narrowed with bewilderment.

"It's Defense Curl," Dawn realized, backing away some more, too - the Bidoof was probably pissed at this point. "Charge an Ember and get ready to dodge."

But Bidoof's attack never came - more liquid seeped over its wiry fur until the ridges and bumps had been filled in, and its exterior was just a smooth, opaque shell. Chimchar gave it a cursory scratch with one hand, jumping back as the points of his claws snapped off.

Normally it took several minutes of constant, undistracted reinforcement for a monster to get a full shield going - Bidoof did it in one.

 _...At least it's just a Bidoof._ And not, say, a bulky and hungry Staraptor.

Nudging it with her foot, she confirmed it wasn't moving, and so she crouched in front of Chimchar. "You feel okay?"

He nodded.

"Good." She felt breathless. "I feel awake, now, so let's got to Sandgem. Then we'll - _ggh!_ "

A weight whammed into her sore back and knocked her into the grass, squashing Chimchar under her torso - she was only thankful he didn't set her on fire out of reflex. The stunner rolled just out of her reach, but first she pushed her hands on the dirt to spin herself around, shielding herself when the Bidoof charged up to her side - but rather that attacking, it shook her arm with wide-eyed concern.

"What are - what are you doing?" Dawn pushed it back, but it went around her arm and sniffed her cheek. "What do you want? Food? We don't have food."

The Bidoof cried out as Chimchar moved between it and Dawn. The Bidoof furrowed its eyes and snapped its teeth, spit landing under Chimchar's eye.

Oh, that did it. The ensuing Ember made Dawn recoil.

Thanks to its shell, Bidoof wasn't roasted alive, but it squealed before running back the way it came. Chimchar took off after it, and Dawn fished up her stunner and chased them, scrambling up the slope and trampling over squishy mushrooms, swinging aside branches, and she found that Bidoof—

And a graveyard.

It stopped her cold. The Bidoof was hunkered with the corpses of two Bibarel, and there were others, too, some stacked up, some left around like forgotten dolls - Staraptor, Kricketune, even a Luxray. All of them were emaciated, eyes still open. She couldn't stare at them for long - there wasn't any point. Her heart was ticking away, he legs ready to snap at the slightest noise.

It looked like a culling, such as those that made the road between Sandgem and Jubilife more hospitable. But humans had the decency to cremate the bodies. Or at least hide evidence.

A monster did this, then.

"Chimchar," she said. "We gotta go. Now." She looked behind her, then towards the shivering Bidoof, who was poking and squeaking at the silent, tense Chimchar.

Her heart clenched.

"Chimchar? C'mon, we—"

She spun at the sound of rustling leaves, backing towards Chimchar. There was a faint blue glow illuminating the woods, and her worst fears were confirmed when a Luxray leapt out with a wild, frothing look aimed dead in her eyes.

All bets were off.

At the last second the three of them dove in different directions as the Luxray hurtled towards them and into a tree, blue sparks cracking and setting leaves alight. Bidoof curled into its thick shell as the Luxray backed away, the full, boggling size of its shining gold eyeballs scanning the woods.

"Hit it with Ember!"

The Luxray snarled at her yell but hissed as the scattershot flames made it skid in the dirt, but it flashed blue and launched towards Chimchar, hurtling through the second volley. Chimchar narrowly rolled out of the blitz, and Dawn went in with the stunner as the Luxray swung around - stunning wouldn't work but a concussion would do them wonders if she could connect—

A discharge blasted all around the roaring Luxray, smashing into Dawn and leaving her a spasming mess on the dirt, a metallic tang in her mouth and burning in her bones and organs. She recovered her vision to see the Luxray's hair standing on end, its tail waving in jerky, robotic motions, its mouth wide open, lowering itself before leaping for the kill.

Dawn jumped first, swinging the stunner and striking the Luxray's skull, but it twisted its neck and caught Dawn's arm in its mouth, and gave it a nasty, thunderous crunch.

She couldn't fight the scream, her nerves shrieking with pain like she'd never felt and her skin was burning and the blood was making Luxray clamp harder—

The Luxray dropped her arm with a gurgling cough as Bidoof crashed into its flank. Bidoof rolled back onto its feet, squealing, putting up its dukes, but Luxray lunged at Bidoof before it could dodge. The thick shell stopped the physical impact, but under the Thunder Fang, the Bidoof's limbs jerked and jolted. With a yell, Chimchar jumped and grabbed onto the Luxray's mane, spewing fire and slashing its neck, but there was another discharge of lightning that exploded around the Luxray, and—

And the ground collapsed. Dawn slammed the hard dirt below after a short drop, and caught three dark silhouettes breaking through the ground, trilling a cry as they dug around the battle, and the Luxray was trying to get up - "Chimchar!" Her throat hurt with the scream. "Chimchar, let go!"

When he didn't, she dove in and grabbed hold of him with her good arm, expecting a shock - but it didn't come. The digging thing headbutted the Luxray with a chorus of indignant squeals, grounding the electricity. Bidoof slumped on the ground and Dawn pulled back Chimchar. Burns were on his body, and the digging monster - familiar, but she had no clue what it was - it came up under the Luxray and sent it flying up, and when it came back down it was shot back up again, and again, and then the Luxray struck the ground with a crack and no other sound.

"Dug-triiiiio! Where are yoooouuu? Professor's gonna kill me if you don't come back! Yell if you can hear - oh sweet baby Mew. What - what the hell happened?!"

The gravity of Chimchar's condition seized Dawn. And she was helpless to stop it. The pokeball - where was the pokeball? - something wet bumped into her. Bidoof. Bidoof the trooper. Fried, sizzling shell and fur but still intact. Somehow. Why? Why Chimchar and not—

Bidoof bumped its wet nose against Dawn's hand, eyes wide with concern.

"Help him." Her voice cracked.

"Professor! Professor, hurry—!"

"Help," Dawn managed through her mouth.

"Help? Help who?" A woman's face popped over the trench. "Um, hello?"

Dawn shot to her feet and lifted Chimchar over her head with her good arm - "Help him!"

"Holy crap! Where did you - where did you get that from? I, I, I just—" The woman grabbed Chimchar but wasn't _helping_ him, and Dawn clawed up the dirt—

"Enough, Roseanne! We must hurry back to the lab!"

The voice - despite all the blood, Chimchar's state, her shocked brain, she recognized that familiar voice, that familiar face—

"Hello, Dawn," Professor Rowan said, pulling her out with a stiff expression. "I'm pleased to see you again."

\\-|-/

Well, Dawn wasn't.

Clamped into the gurney, Dawn stewed in fear and rage as the healing machine hummed around her. The searing pain in her arm had paralyzed her after the adrenaline wore off, but now it felt good as new - well, it pretty much _was_ new. She hadn't been sedated, she didn't need extra blood, and a nurse hadn't been brought in, so there wasn't going to be an amputation. Or a brain surgery.

So it wasn't bad for her, but for Chimchar...if he ended up dead on his second day out, what the hell could she do next? The monsters on Route 201 were dead or gone, and even if they weren't, it took a year or more to raise their baby forms into competent fighters - a year she didn't have.

 _If you're dead, Chimchar, I'm bringing you back to life to kill you myself._ She tried clenching her fist - but the machine forced her to relax.

A quiet, cheery jingle sounded through the machine as the air whooshed out, the gurney rumbling and sliding her out into the cold lab.

"I'd give you the whole spiel about, 'We hope to see you again,' but I'll save that for the real pretty faces." The woman who found her clacked some buttons before helping Dawn to her feet. "You feel okay?"

"Fine. How's Chimchar?"

"He got hit pretty bad, but he might be okay. The most knowledge I have of electricity is plugging in this baby—" She thumped the healing machine for emphasis— "But Luxray can't concentrate their lightning without direct contact, so the shocks weren't as terrible as they could have been. It helps that the Luxray seemed like a real juvie. Juvenile. In our lingo. Like, seriously, it was practically a kitten. No amount of experience or trauma at that age can get a Shinx into a Luxray in that short amount of time, but I guess for that one—"

"He'll live?"

"Uh, no, it's dead."

"Chimchar's _dead?_ "

"Huh? Oh. _Oh!_ " The woman smacked her forehead. "Okay, look, I'll ask the Professor. Not now. Later. Trust me, he can get really mad when he's distracted, so, uh, why don't we eat something? You're looking pretty hungry, yeah..."

The break room looked strangely like home - cushions, a TV playing a Unovan show about the Krookodile hunter, and a refrigerator. The assistant pulled out two frozen dinners and heated them up. The food itself was nothing like home, but Dawn finished wolfing down her meal while the woman was still blowing on it to cool. The woman eyed her for a few seconds before speaking.

"So, uh. What happened in the woods?"

Dawn's stomach still ached with hunger. She shifted in her seat. "Nothing."

"Nothing? There was a huge pile of dead pokemon and nothing happened?"

"I don't know what happened. I didn't exactly have the time to take it all in when a Luxray was trying to kill me."

The woman clicked her tongue. "Point taken." She puffed on her food. "But what were you even doing there?"

"I was going to Sandgem. It's my journey."

"Journeys, huh…" The woman cleared her throat. "Speaking of which, where'd you get that Chimchar? We haven't had one in years!"

Dawn snorted, motioning her head towards the lab. "Ask _him._ "

She didn't recognize him after five years of age on him and with white hair and a moustache, but there was no denying it now. Rowan, that fat bastard, was a mean Underground fighter, a trollish professor, and, unfortunately, a guy who bailed her out of death's door twice. That knowledge sat in her gut like an iron ball.

Dawn uncrossed her arms and sat on her cold hands. "How did you find us?"

"Ooh, my turn to be interviewed." The woman twirled her fork. "We put tracking collars on the local pokemon. I was just here, minding my own business, and then I noticed they were congregating in one area without moving, I just wondered - I mean, we don't have evidence of pokemon holding meetings and stuff. Can you imagine, though? A Bidoof in a business suit?"

She let the woman indulge in her cute fantasies before interrupting them. "Whatever killed them all is still out there."

"Yeah," the woman murmured. "Like, to tell you the truth, for a second back there I was wondering if you did it? But then I realized that if you got wrecked by one Luxray, there was no way you were beating up a whole mob of pokemon, so… I mean, you look like you want to be a badass, but don't be offended, please?"

Dawn didn't react. She watched the woman toss out her tray and scrub her hands.

"Jeez…I guess that's the end of the tests, huh? So much for the funding." The woman clapped her hands once, putting on a perky smile. "Anyway, that is some heavy stuff for six in the morning. Since you kidnapped my food, you mind coming in for some manual labor?"

"I'm not going anywhere until Chimchar's out."

"Look, doing stupid and repetitive things helps me when I'm stressed, which, believe me, is every single day of the week. It's just writing labels for me, okay? Nothing major, right? Just copying things down and making them more readable than my Torchic-scratch."

"I'm not really in the mood."

Except the woman had some seriously convincing puppy-dog eyes. "Please? Pretty please? You'll be so much help!"

Dawn averted her gaze, but got up. "...Only if you don't tell Chimchar about this."

The woman was so delighted, introducing herself as Roseanne before forcing Dawn to wash her hands thoroughly and snap on some gloves before getting to work. Dawn had no idea what she was writing beyond nonsense like _F24-400, M15-402, D23-45,_ but the work lulled her. Meanwhile, Roseanne squirted some nomel-scented spray, reorganized dissection trays, adjusted her bright red glasses and spied through Rowan's window. She knocked on the glass at one point, and a thud resounded that made Dawn turn - someone had slapped up a sign that read _**DO NOT TAP GLASS!**_

An hour later, the lab doors opened to a dark-haired man in a crisp lab coat. "Roseanne," he remarked. "Are you ready to switch?"

"Oh, no, no way I'm sleeping after what happened last night. Check it out! Meet Dawn!"

The man approached her, hands behind his back. He nodded as a greeting. "Doctor Watauchi."

"Dawn Berlitz."

He eyed her a little longer. There was something familiar about him - Dawn wasn't going to let these things slide anymore. "Did he pick her?"

"Huh? Huh." Roseanne tilted her head. "I don't know. But maybe - oh my god! Did Rowan give you the trial? Were you that kid? The one who, like, ran into the grass and he bawled you out and he's a big old softie on the inside so he—" Her face broke into a ridiculous grin. "Oh my god, hahaha - I think she's it!"

The man's face crashed. "This is terrible."

"Wh - what?! What's terrible?"

"She's a criminal."

And she remembered - she remembered his face. The memorial last year - he and an old man and a little girl were there for a trainer who had stopped updating them on his journey. This man must've gone this year, too.

"You don't understand. I wasn't charged."

"We know the police better than anyone here," the man said flatly. "Believe me. I think you should leave."

"If you know the police, then you should know—"

"Look, you can't stay here." He put a hand on her shoulder. "You need to go."

"Hey, why don't we just ask the professor—"

"You don't need to ask the professor anything!" Dawn jumped up with a force that made even the impassive doctor step back. "Look, you can stand around here, or you can shut up and do something actually useful by helping Chimchar. I'm out of here."

"Wait, Dawn, wait - would you look at what you've done?!"

"I'm talking to him."

"No, please, wait—!"

She slammed the door, the crash mingling with the pounding of her heart.

It took everything in her not to yell and not to thrash out at everything around her - but to keep walking, to leave that behind, to clear her thoughts with a long, slow walk.

There was nothing else she could do.

\\-|-/

Sandgem was much more active than Twinleaf at this hour. Where the most exciting thing in Twinleaf was the small doctor's office where her mom worked as a secretary-slash-nurse, Sandgem had the lab looming over the woods, the academy to the south, and a main street lined with stone buildings that were coming to life. One shopkeeper switched the flowers outside of the market, while two little kids played Bide with a Kricketot. A few women and men piled out of a diner, wearing the dark blue suits of the local power plant.

The streets resonated with the bells of the academy's chapel. Passing through the expansive campus, Dawn saw the nuns sweeping the chapel stairs, the groundskeepers and their Machop clipping lush bushes before the start of the school year. The school's flags fluttered, one for Sinnoh, the other with the colors of Dialga.

Dawn wasn't religious - her parents didn't care for hammering the fear of gods in her - but she would've tolerated this school. This religious order devoted itself to the bond between humans and monsters, like all the nutters in Johto, and they would've supported her if she wanted to get one for herself. Certainly, the pokemon provided by the academy were bred down to be docile and gentle - which was probably why her mom was okay with the academy - but Dawn knew even the mildest of creatures could pack a punch if trained right.

The problem, she recalled with a grimace, was when she sat in on one of the classes and discovered that the nuns made their students pray not just to some particular gods, but for Sinnoh's champion. That day, it suddenly became very easy for Dawn to reroute herself to the seedy check-cashing shop at the edge of town before hitching the flight back home.

The academy was situated next to the beach, totally devoid of people because of the chill. She tasted the salt in the air as she watched the dark water crash again and again against the rocky shore. In the distance, the sky and the sea melded into absolute grey. The wind was steady, tangling her hair, making her fold her arms to cover the skin exposed by the ravaged sleeve.

The last time she came here had been years ago. Barry's dad brought his whole family along, even Dawn and her mom, even his ex-wife from Unova, and took over the entire beach. He showed Dawn how to cast a line, and her first shot sent the wire flying up, and up, and it snagged a Wingull's beak - at eight years old she thought everyone was laughing at her and not the situation, but her mom suppressed her laughter into a gentle, amused smile as she helped Dawn reel in and unhook the struggling bird.

That was the trip where Dawn and Barry heard about the crazy old man's not-so-secret lab, how he had plenty of pokemon to give to new trainers, and…

"There you are, Dawn."

…and the rest was history.

The professor came down the slope with his trousers rolled up, ambling into the sea without complaint. He only glanced back when the sand split apart to reveal the three weird creatures from earlier, chittering and chirping with thick eyebrows that scowled against a blast of wind.

"That's a Dugtrio," the old man murmured. "It was a gift from a colleague. It's well-behaved, but a very unusual creature. At a first glance, one cannot tell if it has three heads on one body, or three separate bodies that share one mind."

Dugtrio hesitated - perhaps its heads in communion with each other - before burrowing to Dawn's side. One head stretched up to bump Dawn's hand, so she gave the heads a scratch that made them squabble and bump each other aside for extras. She couldn't help but smile, even as she felt Rowan's eyes fall on her.

"My colleague was so proud to declare that Kanto had eliminated these pests to near-extinction, to the point where they only inhabit a tunnel between two cities." His voice turned warm. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that they are very common around Stark Mountain, and treated quite fondly by the local farmers."

She watched the three heads bob up and down at the sight of their trainer before diving back down, the sand tunnel collapsing to its original state as if it had never been disturbed to begin with.

"It feels like yesterday when we first met." He crouched in the ocean, the waves swallowing his ankles before receding. "You and your friend tried to run into the grass to receive a pokemon from my lab. Don't you remember?"

Just looking at him made bitterness sting in her mouth.

"Yeah. I remember."

"It's very fascinating, really. When you've lived as long as I have, you see how events recur, that certain paths seem…unavoidable." He examined the washed-up stones, circling his thumb across each one. "I took on this profession hoping that evolution held the key to changing the world. Instead, I realized that things never change, not truly. "

She was about tempted to storm back to the lab and grab Chimchar and leave. But Dugtrio was still around. It had trapped that Luxray - and there was no telling how far she would fall if she made one wrong step.

She exhaled silently through her teeth, but didn't say a word.

"Your father stole a pokemon from this very lab when he was…perhaps your age? That was twenty-five years ago. We had an Eevee litter to study evolution. Did you know, back in those days, people believed evolution depended on the so-called heart of the Eevee's trainer? That never made any sense to me. Why on earth would a monster evolve in response to fickle emotions rather than, say, environmental stimuli?"

"…What does this have to do with me?"

"I'm sorry. I've lost track."

He shoved his hands into his deep pockets, watching the sky. Eventually, he broke the silence.

"Your father certainly disrupted our experiments, but in the end, he proved me right. Eevee evolutions are based on environmental factors. It didn't matter who raises them. But later, I realized it _does_ matter. What kind of person would expose their monster only to the night, and never the day? Who would threaten their companions with lightning and fire in the name of growing stronger?"

"Someone who wants to help them reach their full potential."

"Is that what you're doing, Dawn?"

"Yes." She fixed her eyes on the cloudy horizon. "I started my journey."

"It doesn't seem like much of one. You have no supplies. No tents, no blankets…nothing."

"I couldn't bring them. I don't have any."

"That's quite irresponsible."

She stiffened. "Don't judge things you don't understand."

"You're quite right. That's not the route of a scientist, but, say, a fear-mongerer, a fundamentalist, a coward…" He looked at her. "So tell me what I don't understand. I change my mind on countless things."

Oh, maybe he'd understand a punch to the face. She held off from it, glaring at out of the corner of her eye, and after waiting for a good length of time to keep herself from blowing up in his face and getting herself killed - she just felt tired.

"Look, is Chimchar okay?"

He didn't respond.

Her shoulders dropped, and - she felt helpless.

"We didn't have the supplies for a journey, but we needed to leave. Twinleaf - it's - it's dying. There's no money, there are no jobs. We needed to get out, but that place, Mom's so attached to it, Dad lived there since forever, and she's not—" She rubbed her face while trying to find the words. "I didn't want to rely on her for support. She's not rich. Unlike some of us."

"Hm."

"I thought Chimchar and I were ready. We accomplished a lot together, so whatever happened, we could handle it. We could win." She sighed. "And I was wrong."

"It's funny how you say 'we.' I don't normally hear that in trainers."

"Oh." Dawn kicked a lump of sand. "That's - it's just easier to say—"

"When we first met, I took you to be a very selfish girl. Perhaps you still are. But from what I've seen, I think you've grown up a little." Before she could splutter, he pulled out a pokeball and handed it over. "Chimchar is fine. He seemed quite keen on seeing you again. He certainly wreaked some havoc in trying to escape. Considering your situation, I won't charge you for damages."

She held the ball up to the light, pressing the button to check Chimchar's condition - _Healthy._ She felt the professor hovering over her shoulder.

"It's modified," he remarked. "It operates on a timer. He must be out for five minutes before you can recall him."

"That explains it," she muttered. "Can it be fixed?"

"No. When a pokemon is caught by a trainer, it is registered with them and that pokeball for life. There's no changing the ball unless you release the pokemon through the storage system. And then you'd never get him back."

"Seriously?"

"You have to be careful, Dawn." His face turned harsh and steeled. "If you use him in combat, be sure that you can win."

His expression reminded her of what she had seen in photos of her grandmother. Apparently, she had maintained a pack of Houndour near Hearthome, matching their dark, sinister nature with a swift and strict brutality that kept them in line. That attitude elevated her to ranks of authority during the war, under the service of Bertha Kikuno. That attitude was in all of Sinnoh's elders, the ones who could still speak the traditional language, the ones who had survived decades of winters without heat, comfort, and food.

No wonder his hair had gone so white so soon.

"I'm curious - did he come from your lab?"

He shook his head. "We couldn't match his genes. The trainer he's registered to isn't one I've met."

"Huh."

After a pause punctured only by the rhythm of waves and crying Wingull, Rowan regarded her again. "Where are you going next?"

"Jubilife. I'm taking on the League."

"As I thought." He smirked under his moustache. "The League Challenge is as curious as it is savage."

She shrugged. It was some big talk for a guy who fought in the Underground.

"How will you manage? You have no supplies—"

"We'll take on trainers until we get the money."

"What if you lose?"

"We won't lose."

"Well, I've yet to see you win."

She tightened her fists.

"I'm not doing this to bully you. I'm trying to make you an offer. You are not obligated to accept, but I would like it if you listened." He started trudging up the beach, raising his voice. "I'll explain in the lab."

She could've had enough of his offers. She could've stormed out and onto the road.

But she owed him.

She followed him, slowly at first - then broke into a run when she realized how long his strides were. It was hard to keep up - he knew the shortcuts through town and avoided the people, and the ones he did run into hurried on by or even recoiled upon seeing him. Dawn couldn't give it much though as they approached the lab, the door swinging open.

"Professor, no!" Roseanne cried, blocking the entrance. "Don't go tracking dirt all over the place!"

"Ah - I had forgotten." He sat on a chair Roseanne pulled out and pulled on his socks and shoes. "Quite a shame. I've heard walking barefoot is good for the health. One gym leader swears by it."

"Yeah, yeah, well, gym leaders are crazy. Hey, Dawn! Happy about Chimchar?"

"Yeah." She sent Chimchar out, and he looked better than she'd ever seen him - his fur had a light sheen and his mouth broke into a silly grin at the sight of her. In seconds he got onto her shoulder, bringing himself up to his full length so he stood over Dawn's head - feeling as tall as he could while he faced down the professor, and tightened his hand in her hair.

Rowan laughed. "I'm not challenging you, Chimchar. I'm helping you."

She patted Chimchar's head to get him to settle down - he let go of her hair, at least.

Once inside, the professor directed her towards the table, glasses of water and hot tea already lined up. "What would you like?" He smiled softly. "Something to drink?"

"No."

"Candy?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's common courtesy, Dawn. Please, sit down."

Chimchar looked over his shoulder warily as they sat around the table. She took her seat across from Rowan, who held his mug with both hands and levelled her with his gaze.

"Let me start from the beginning. I've spent the past five years travelling Kanto. It was only meant to be for one year, as a sort of research sabbatical."

"A working vacation," Roseanne piped.

"Please, Roseanne. But she is correct - the trip was in order to secure funding. For some kind of future with this lab. Any kind of future."

"Wait - aren't you guys rich? Like - the gem of Sandgem?"

His eyes flared. She shut up.

"Anyway. Team Rocket caught wind of my work. They wanted me for my research on evolution. Some nonsense about radio signals in the Ruins of Alph…" He took a long drink. "It was a generous sum of money, but one I could not accept. I had certain doubts about the project, and unfortunately, I was right. And Team Rocket did not take my rejection kindly."

She glanced at Chimchar, then at the drinks. Doctor Watauchi's was still full. He watched her, intently.

"To answer your question," Rowan continued, "my projects on evolution have always been a matter of controversy in this community. Five years ago, the city council voted to quietly cancel public funding for my research. That necessitated my trip, but I knew my efforts would go to waste after the incident in Hoenn. There's been a resurgence of religious fervor, and now people - not simply here, but everywhere - consider my work to be sacrilege. That I'm meddling with things we aren't supposed to understand."

"Even the League?"

"The League appreciates pokemon research, yes. The champion, however, isn't so fond of me these days."

The League, the champion - things began to click.

"I remember now. You took Cynthia in as one of your students. The League has this way of spinning it, but let me try putting it in your terms: She used your good will to learn everything she could about her enemies, and used that knowledge to stab you in the back and take over the League."

"I'd put it in slightly different terms," he said coolly, "but yes. The previous champion and I were quite close. We respected each other. We supported each other. My gym was a necessary destination for the League challenge, and - everyone came here, Dawn. Even Cynthia." He was smiling, even as he kept speaking. "I saw potential in her, and the thirst for knowledge. And my assumptions were correct. She was an incredible student." His smile didn't reach his eyes, now. "I should have seen it coming."

She couldn't imagine Sandgem as a bustling League city. But it was making sense - why Rowan was still in this small town, why a university hadn't taken him in. Why he was living among common wildlife instead of the more exotic locales. Maybe - maybe why he had been Underground. Trying to get money. Like her. And blowing it all on saving her life.

"The League is my last hope, but the champion refuses to work with me," he murmured. "Our options have run out, but then it came to me - what if Cynthia were replaced with someone who was willing to support us…?"

Doctor Watauchi lowered his head.

"Wait," Dawn started, "you can't be serious—"

"Yes," Rowan said, lifting his lips. "I want you to become the champion."

"...You _what?_ "

"It's quite simple, really," he mused. "The League doesn't know about our dire straits, and thus it will see you as a lab assistant carrying out my research. No one will question it. We'll say your job is to catalog all the pokemon still inhabiting Sinnoh, which means you must acquire badges to explore the deeper parts of the routes, to encounter the rare pokemon League members use, to legally use different methods of transporation…"

"Wait - you're declaring war on the champion?"

He nodded, and when the sudden eagerness surged in her heart and on her face, his smile was the warmest thing in the lab.

\\-|-/

Working under Rowan had many benefits - a new coat, a secure backpack, and all the supplies a trainer could need packed into capsules and organized into their proper pockets. After a long, satisfying sleep during the time it took to register the information on her license, she scored a discount on items in the market - nothing major, but a pokeball costing two hundred instead of three was nothing to sneeze at.

"Five pokeballs," Rowan murmured, packing them into an easy-access pouch. "I highly recommend getting a full team as soon as possible. It might sound difficult, but it will only help you. They can train against each other, they can defend you, they can keep watch at night—"

"It's a lot of mouths to feed," Dawn said, shaking the bag.

"But a full team wins you battles. And isn't that the goal of all this?"

Probably the biggest boon, however, came in the form of a small handheld computer. "The digital pocket monster encyclopedia index with illustrations and/or photographs, the pocket index for short, the pokedex for even shorter," Roseanne recited, spinning in her chair. "It's pretty great."

Not just anyone ran around with these. It'd be a good cover for her as a scientist if she ended up in places in the wilderness she wasn't supposed to be. And that wasn't even getting into the complete database of monsters, techniques, dietary needs…

"The previous assistant left notes," Rowan said. "You will find them useful."

"Do I have to add to them?"

He gave it consideration. "Add notes for yourself if need be. Don't upload them, for god's sake."

"He's really picky about what goes up there," Roseanne said in a stage-whisper.

"Furthermore," Doctor Watauchi interrupted, "by working under a professor, you have access to the storage system. We can hold onto excess supplies, but we can't take your pokemon. We can't afford to care for them."

"It's a shame," Rowan said, "but we can make up for that. If you hold off on challenging the League for one month, we can obtain match footage of gym battles. You won't be able to access the most up-to-date footage, but you'll have something."

"Match footage? Seriously?!" But those videos were exclusive to gym members only! Yes, _yes,_ it would be a godsend to have them - any match was winnable if you had time to prepare - but uploaders and distributors of bootlegs were ratted out eventually. And many people who acquired the tapes were hauled off to prisons on the old mining archipelagoes.

"You doubt me, don't you? But don't you worry. I have my ways."

"Look, I don't really need those—"

"Yes," Doctor Watauchi said. "You do."

Dawn leaned back and held her hands in surrender. "I won't question a good thing."

"With that settled, I'd like to decide the best course of action." Rowan nodded her way. "Excuse us, Dawn."

The scientists debated over a map of Sinnoh, jotting notes and pushing pins. When Dawn got bored of their bickering, she showed off her new supplies to Chimchar, noting his particular excitement over the macho brace. After the argument was settled, Rowan called Dawn over.

"There are currently eight gyms in the circuit," he said. "Our recommendation is to tackle them in this order—" He pointed to every location as he named them. "Oreburgh, Eterna, Veilstone, Pastoria, Hearthome, Canalave, Snowpoint, Sunnyshore."

He had added an extra, angry-looking 'N' to Sunyshore. Dawn glanced over the map at some unreadable scribbles. "Why Oreburgh first? And shouldn't Hearthome be third?"

"Oreburgh has the newest leader. Which isn't to say he is weak, but he doesn't have as much experience as the others. Hearthome's leader, meanwhile, refuses all challengers with less than five badges."

"Who does he think he is?"

"She specializes in ghosts. It's not a matter of pride, but ensuring the safety and sanity of her challengers. She may appear to be a flighty woman, but I implore you to have a strong team and a full understanding of what you'll face before challenging her."

The thought of ghost specialists made Dawn shiver. "So Veilstone?"

"She's also a rookie, but those who have fought her with more than five badges have universally lost. Then, by the time you reach Pastoria, the new leader should be inducted." Rowan scratched his chin. "You'll take on Hearthome, and if it is summer, you'll cross the mountains to Jubilife, then Canalave. If it is winter, you'll spend the season training in the city. At your sixth badge, you'll take a boat to Snowpoint, then another boat to Sunnyshore. From there, you'll have to rely on your pokemon to reach Victory Road."

Chimchar was practically brimming with pride at the mention of all these places, his mind probably racing with the opponents he'd fight.

"If you dedicate yourself," Rowan said, "you have four months to clear Oreburgh and Eterna and reach Hearthome. You might not challenge the leader, but I'd recommend spending the winter there. It's a prosperous city."

"An expensive city, in other words."

"Don't mumble like that. If you take residence there for a season, you will be eligible for supply train drop-offs, which includes hyper potions—"

"Sold."

Rowan turned back to Dawn. "I make it sound very easy. Many people do not survive this challenge, and don't think you're above death, no matter how lucky you've been. Be vigilant, be cautious, and, above all..." He put on his scary face. "Don't meddle with people in strange uniforms."

"Um, Professor?" Roseanne squeaked. "Did you just make a jo—"

"Our time limit is three years," Rowan boomed. "Three years - and then I will be forced to close our doors."

"Well, let's not waste any time," Dawn said, shouldering her bag as Chimchar scurried onto the floor.

"Wait, you're going?" Roseanne squawked, chasing after her. "Now? Are you taking the bus?"

"Nah. We're walking - thanks," she said as Roseanne stuffed the map in her bag. "We need to catch some pokemon, don't we?"

"Good. You're a fast learner," Rowan said, following Dawn to the door. "The League maintains patrols on the upcoming route, but watch for any threats. Strengthen yourself, but above all, survive."

"We're counting on you, Dawn!"

"Berlitz, update us with every city," Doctor Watauchi shouted. "Don't miss a location. And alert us if you need help—"

"Take care of yourself," the professor said, clicking the door shut behind her.

Dawn looked down at Sandgem transitioning into the night, workers chatting and laughing on their way home or to the late shift at the power plant. The chapel bells rang for seven, and the lights were on in all of the streets. She breathed in, somehow feeling warm despite coming out from the scarce heat of the lab. Her bag felt lighter than air, and there was no keeping down the thrill surging in her as she took her first step as a fully-prepared trainer.

Excited as she was, she didn't see the incoming blur crashing into her leg, and nearly stomped on a startled Chimchar before righting herself, and whipped around - her stomach sinking at a familiar sight.

Bidoof tugged on her laces, crying out. Even as Chimchar swatted it away, its mouth was pulled back in an undeniable smile.

Sighing, Dawn knelt down. She pressed her hand on Chimchar's back to keep him from lashing out. "What are you doing here?"

Bidoof stared at her like she was a wizard, taking her finger in its paw and squeezing a few times. He probably didn't understand a word she just said.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm alive. We're all alive. Kind of a nasty Luxray, wasn't it?" She smiled firmly, nodding. "All right. You gotta let go, now." She pulled her finger free and got up, urging Chimchar along.

There wasn't much she could do with a little Bidoof, after all. That little guy was defensive, sure, but it was - well, a Bidoof. A simple soul. It'd forget about all this after a few days and go back to damming the river, and she'd be well on her way.

Except she heard it brush through the weeds behind her.

"Okay, no," she called without turning around. "You're the laughingstock of the pokemon world. Go back to your woods, your parents are probably worried that you're..."

Missing, she meant to say.

Unless those dead Bibarel were its parents.

She glanced over her shoulder, glanced away, glanced back. Bidoof's expression returned to its grin every time she looked at him. "...Look, the woods are safe now, okay? Just go there. I don't have time for this."

Jubilife was about fifteen hours away, she figured while walking down the hill to the main street's sidewalk. They wouldn't spend the full night walking, and they probably wouldn't get to Jubilife for a few days, anyway. There was training to do, trainers to challenge, preparations to make for what was coming - and from now on, they needed to be ready for anything.

The road was long, after all. The road was dark.

...and that Bidoof was _still_ following her.

 _What am I supposed to do with you?_

She looked at Chimchar, who eventually gave in to her stare with a sigh, and she looked back at the little pokemon waddling along.

Maybe she could turn this around.

"Look," she called, "if you're coming with us, you're gonna have to be a lot faster than that!"

It made a determined cry, and she bolted towards the route with Bidoof and Chimchar racing after her, hoping to find a place to camp before it was too dark.

* * *

 **Current Team:**

 _Chimchar - Male. Lonely. Likes to thrash about._

 _Bidoof - Male. Bold. Capable of taking hits._

* * *

 **a/n:** dawn this is the third coat/sweater you've ruined in this story. get a grip, girl.

anyway - thanks for the feedback. it looks like long chapters are the way to go. hoping this satisfies.

the constant curbstomping is a tribute to coming close to three game overs before the tutorial even began - once by the rival, once on the way to sandgem for the first time, and once on the way back to say goodbye to mom. at least i ended up getting a bidoof out of it!

...yeah, it's...a bidoof. but this nuzlocke made me grow a soft spot for the little guy.

thanks for reading, and thanks for reviewing. it's midterm season, though, so the next update will probably drop in two weeks. hope you enjoy it.


	5. the city

**4.** _the city_

* * *

The problem with Jubilife was that it was bent on killing her.

"Hey, you're pretty! Hello! _Hey!_ "

There were the hustlers, yes, the creepers among the packed crowd swelling across the sidewalks and into the clogged roads. Always targeting those who weren't on the defense, and all but threatening their victims to give up valuables in exchange for ripoffs - or snatching them into something much worse.

"Hey, lady! _Hey!_ "

Dawn kept walking, but in dodging one woman she rammed right into someone else, sending them both staggering as people jostled past. So many people - it damn near suffocated Dawn, and now this guy - oh, dammit, was he really dressed up like Hi Skitty?

"Greetings!" he said, flashing tickets in an oversized paw. "Have you been considering a, eh, what is the word - a tour of Jubilife TV?"

A man in a Skitty suit huddling over a young girl and offering tickets to a place promising glitz and glamour - oh, yeah, this wasn't sketchy at all.

She pulled out Chimchar's pokeball - scarred, beaten, and battered - and with an audible _ulp_ the guy took off.

Sighing, she returned it on her belt and rejoined the mob. One benefit of having a busted but hardcore-looking pokeball - it scared off hustlers. If any of them actually challenged her, though, that would be a different story. Chimchar was on the verge of collapse, and Bidoof had burns on his face and belly after a sneak attack on a dozing Chimchar.

So the pokemon center came first. And she would have gotten there hours ago if all these people weren't—

"Hello, my friend!"

 _"I'm not your friend!"_ she yelled, slamming him aside and hurrying past.

But the hustlers weren't trying to kill her - it was the air. She started smelling smog as far back as Route 202, when the buses rolled by with armed guards riding the roof and reeking of the city, and it got worse as she hiked through the boarded-up suburbs, eyes watering, lungs tight. Part of her had gotten used to the smell, but now and then something acrid would well up and make her throat clench, and smog was festering in her guts now.

 _I am not,_ she decided, pausing for the crosswalk light to change, _going to let this city kill me on my first week out._

A Luxray, an Electivire, a meteor apocalypse, dinosaurs coming back to life, Groudon waging war on his buddy Kyogre, all of that would be fine, but it was not going to be the air—

"Get the fuck outta the way!"

—or a car. She fought the temptation to slap the woman's bumper and scream about right of way, but she didn't have time to even check that her fingers and toes were still complete because the pedestrians shoved her through the flow.

Jubilife - number one madhouse city in the west, if not in all of Sinnoh. It masked itself as a stylish, enchanting city standing among the likes of Castelia and Sootopolis, but in truth, Jubilife was just uncanny. The internet cafe - _L_ _ook at what you want when you want!_ \- the zoo, the cheap trainer's school, the skyscrapers booming election advertisements on enormous TVs - all the buildings seemed to teeter on top of the ground, as if they weren't anchored in at all. And always, everywhere, office workers blended with gangsters, dark-suited guardsmen patrolled the GTS construction project, and the babble and car horns and trailers for the upcoming Black Hydreigon movie washed together into an unintelligible, monstrous roar - Jubilife's roar.

Whatever hope Dawn had that the pokemon center would be peaceful died upon seeing the crowd. She elbowed a few people rushing in and limping out, and came in to see some nurses—

"We need help back here!" one woman hollered from back doors to the hospital. "Big old Arbok, need some of you to restrain it—"

"Do you see this line?!" a girl at the counter snapped. "We can't help you!"

"Yeah, this is a class one ranger, either you get over here or get out of my center!"

"Hey! Kid with the scarf!" a third, brassy-voice nurse shouted from the counter. "Get up here!"

There were like, ten kids with scarves, but Dawn found her pushed up to the counter, about to vehemently refuse to help pin down an Arbok, but instead found that the nurse was sickly pale and tired, but spoke fast anyway. "Galaxy Pokemon Center, you healing your pokemon?"

"Yeah, sure," she said, fumbling at her belt.

"Come on, we don't got all day!"

"I just got here," she muttered, throwing her pokeballs on the counter - the tension was making her shoulders clench tight.

The nurse snorted, but scanned the pokeballs and slotted them in a tray. "You're number five-fifty-seven. It'll cost you a thousand, we registering you for tonight?"

"A thousand bucks? Seriously?!"

The nurse's eyes flared. "Yes, a thousand! What did you expect?"

"It's a _pokemon_ center—"

The nurse slammed the counter and screamed, "Wow, really? It's a pokemon center?! Gee, I had no idea, I've been working here all my life and I could never tell!" She laughed ghoulishly, then her words tore back into Dawn like a Mandibuzz ripping out guts, "Do you even know where the hell you are?! You want cheap-ass healing so bad you can take your crack-ass to Oreburgh because we don't have time for—"

She suddenly whirled away from Dawn's eyes. Two mighty slaps echoed above the din, then she was thrown aside. A Blissey, making a curt purr, hopped on a chair to elevate her arms over the counter, and gestured for Dawn's ID.

The nurse got onto shaky feet and teetered into the hospital. Dawn looked back at the Blissey, which was straining its arm with an increasingly grouchy look.

Not wanting to be slapped or Seismic Tossed through the roof, Dawn leaned around to check the countertop calendar - three weeks until the next payment date. "Charge it," she decided.

Satisfied, Blissey quite literally punched some buttons and returned the card with a paper receipt, taking a bow and crying out to the next trainer in line.

One thousand five hundred. Five hundred for a crappy bunk bed in a crappy hostel that she hadn't even asked for. Sleeping on a park bench was better than this.

More than that, people were happily letting that Blissey smack around humans. Gods knew what other crazy things infected this town.

Madhouse. Every bit of Jubilife was a madhouse.

Dawn threw her backpack into one of the three empty waiting chairs. _A thousand bucks._ She fell into the next chair, thumping her head against the wall. _Where do you get a thousand bucks?_

Trainers weren't exactly running around with money on hand - or even in their account, considering how many industries thrived on kids wasting their stipends - no, they usually fought with only a couple dozen bucks. But if she took that money and played double or nothing, and…well, she was getting somewhere.

Yeah - it was about starting small. Start small and get rich quick. Beat some little kid's Starly and score ten bucks. Find some gambling joint, build that money up. Like the Underground.

And this time, she wouldn't get herself killed. Almost killed. Either way.

That settled, she glanced at the TVs. A Pokeathlon was on - this time athletes and their monsters rapelled down Mount Silver - but it didn't look like Lyra Nakajima was competing, so nothing worth her time. Otherwise there was a Unovan crime show and the rerun of the Red Gyarados hunt, both of them constantly interrupted by election commercials, and Dawn's eyes had glazed over when a fight broke out ahead of her.

"He's from Unova, _I'm_ from Unova, and he's a gift - the egg was a gift, I hatched him here, all right? He's a little fu - fricking baby and he's not gonna do you any harm, get it?"

It was some big guy, a wrestler-esque build, possibly a steroid-shooting loser. At least, he thought it was a good idea to get into a screaming match with a Chansey. The distinct smacks of another Doubleslap rang through the air, and Dawn shut her eyes and sunk into the hard chair.

"Hey, what's happening, huh? You look tired."

 _Oh, come on—_ That guy from the counter plopped beside her, putting on what he must've thought was a friendly smile, which looked more like a leer. His coat was big enough to be a tent - Unovans were so weak to the cold - but it didn't hide the red bandanna wrapped around his neck. Red as his freshly-smacked cheeks.

Dawn looked away, but he didn't give up. "You from around here?"

She nodded.

"Must be a new trainer, then. I ain't seen you around." His hand moved as if to shake hers, but when she didn't budge, it quickly swept through his cropped hair. "Name's Ex."

"It's a weird name."

"Yeah, well, I ain't from around here. Just glad you people speak like I do. Not your, like, little Clefairy moonspeak stuff." He laughed, staring at her all the while. Like he was analyzing how to cut up a pig. "I didn't catch your name."

She shrugged. "Dawn."

"See, where I'm from? That's weird. You're just one letter away from 'damn' and we'd all call you that. Damn, girl." He laughed again.

"I don't think I'll visit your country, then. I'm not in the mood to talk."

"That's too bad." His face turned serious. "I got a whole family waiting for me back there. Got a little girl - reminds me of you."

There was a rustling sound, and he shoved his wallet in her face, crumpled up photo of a pretty woman and a young girl. "I needed money, and my buddy talked about a business of his. Pokemon watches or whatever. Cocksucker backstabbed me and left me here to rot, and I've been trying to get back home for months…"

She pulled the backpack against her stomach, making a point to look at the TV before checking the clock. It was either broken or lying, but there was no way she was in here for that long—

"What are you doing?!" Dawn ripped her arm out of the man's grip, but he snagged the edge of the jacket's fabric, rubbing it between his fingers.

"Sorry, sorry, just haven't seen clothes like that. Good stuff. Sugar daddy get it for you?"

…Why the hell were there potential witnesses around here?

"Quit looking at me like that! It's a joke!" He huffed and repositioned himself in his seat. "I was just hoping you could spare some change. Help someone out for once in your life."

"Shut up."

"Yeah. You're tired, I'm tired, all water under the bridge and coming out in the wash." Again with that laugh, and at the end he thumped her shoulder with an unsettling smile. "Look, go on and sleep. I'll watch your stuff."

 _I'll watch your stuff._

He said it so easily - _I'll watch your stuff._

And she couldn't take it.

"I'm sorry, do I look stupid?" The guy's smile fell off his face, and that propelled her to lean in his face and say, "Look, I'm broke. I have nothing. So if you want to rob me so bad I'm more than happy to shove this bag right up your—"

"You don't talk to me like that!"

"I can talk to you however I want, but I won't, because you're going to walk out of here, and if I ever see you again—"

"Ooh, watch out, people!" he bellowed to the center, "we got a badass here!"

"Badder 'n your ass," she muttered.

"That the best you can come up with?"

She ripped her head back to look at him, and this time - she should have figured it would happen, feeling that furious glare on her - they were looking at each other in the eye.

No one else noticed. No one else cared.

But apparently, two trainers making eye contact was a gesture universal to all cultures.

"Five-fifty-seven! Five-fifty-eight! Your parties are ready!"

Yeah, it was on.

\\-|-/

The back alley was open enough for a fight - room to run around but not away, and for Chimchar to shoot Embers without setting the whole damn place on fire. The guy she was fighting insisted they fight there, but glared at the gathering spectators and street hawkers calling for bets. Probably made it that much harder for him to try slitting her throat.

"You wanna know what I did to the last little kid I fought?" He looked back at her with his head tilted up. "No - you'll find out yourself."

She smiled up at her opponent, thumbs hooked in her belt.

"You're scared, aren't you?" He bent into her face. "Where I'm from, if you're afraid - you die."

She didn't flinch, didn't hesitate, didn't stammer - she shoved him back to get some air that didn't carry the stench of the guy's smoky breath.

If they had been fighting alone, he would've tried killing her and she would've just shocked his brains out and have been done with it.

Unfortunately for them both, there were witnesses. But fortunately for her, witnesses meant an awesome trainer battle debut.

"Count of three, we send them out," she said. "Another three, we start."

"I make the rules," he said. "But we're doing it that way."

She took her sweet time getting in position, dragging her toes to mark an imaginary line on the concrete, rubbing together her cold hands as if she were about to dive into a meal, smiling at the crowd—

"Would you hurry it up?!"

"Sorry, sorry," she said, smiling inwardly. "Okay, let's count - one—"

"Three!"

He whipped his fist and a burst of brilliant red light revealed a screeching Deino, dark hair glistening under the sunset. People were muttering and camera lights were flashing, and her opponent bared a grin at the attention and at Deino as it pawed the ground with a few rattling squawks.

Yeah, it looked tough, like it could chew through it could chew through the dumpster and get Bidoof through its jaws in one gulp. It looked strong - but that was just it.

 _Ninetieth percentile in size, newly-hatched…_

It only looked strong. It was a newborn, though. Mostly blind, weak jaws, legs wobbling beneath its weight…

She caught the guy's eyes and smiled back. "You're asking for it, aren't you?"

She flipped a pokeball in her fingers and threw it down, sending Bidoof out. He was a fast learner - he stretched out his squat figure and didn't give Deino a second glance, and once relaxed, his nose twitched at the strange city smells. The insults flying their way went right over his head, and if people weren't paying attention, they'd think his slow, sweeping gaze was just a stupid Bidoof zoning out.

Yes - he was a fast learner.

"One—"

The guy's voice boomed through the alley - "Dragon Rage!"

Bidoof didn't understand a lot of words yet, but he understood an angry dragon charging at him. He snapped into a ball as he threw himself away from the Deino's snapping jaws, thonking against the cement. First layer was up, second layer was seeping out.

"Dragon Rage! I said Dragon Rage!"

Deino's head jittered around, growls churning for several seconds before he leapt onto Bidoof and chomped hard, the crack of its teeth on a stone-hard shield making everyone wince. Except Dawn - she smiled at its yowling, warbling shrieks blending with the roars of the crowd.

"Stay!" she yelled - one word commands worked best, ones distinct enough for him to hear through the layers of his shield.

"Dragon Rage! Will you listen to me?! Look at me—!" Everything else was buried another the commotion and hollers from the sidelines.

All the while Deino was ramming into Bidoof, who only rolled around the alleyway and bopped into walls without even a dent in his armor, and every time Bidoof rolled away, Deino was scrambling to find him again.

Poor thing wouldn't know what hit it.

"Bidoof, down!"

Bidoof threw himself onto his back, exposing his belly - but he couldn't help but crack open an eye to see Dawn's nod of approval. Deino finally caught Bidoof's scent and took the plunge with open jaws—

"Dammit, Deino, back off!"

"Curl into crack!"

Bidoof folded his body as the jaws chomped, but this time it wasn't a Defense Curl - his paws clenched into the skin of Deino's mouth, strained for a second, and then ripped its jaw open with a crack. Deino's gasping squeal turning into screeching as Bidoof tackled into the loosened jaw like an uppercut. Layers of defense, the sudden force - it was like a car ramming into the oversized Deino, toppling it backwards.

Deino's trainer was screaming, the whole crowd was screaming, one girl cheering and shaking a mortified gambler, but Bidoof ignored it all to slam another attack into the Deino's vulnerable flank. Only then did it wheeze a Dragon Rage that melted part of Bidoof's shell - a more prepared shot might've killed Bidoof, but it was too late, Bidoof swung himself into Deino's chest with another crack that left Deino breathless, and Bidoof surged in for a tackle to the gut, and another one so forceful that it flipped Deino upright, and Bidoof went for Deino's right leg, forcing it down on one knee. It coughed another Dragon Rage that fizzled five feet from Bidoof, and one last uppercut—

The Deino's howl was nearly unbearable, piercing her eardrums. But Dawn pressed her lips into a tiny smile.

"Get up!" the guy yelled. "Dragon Rage! Dragon Rage! I said—"

Dawn motioned with her hand, and Bidoof stopped his assault.

Yeah - he was a great learner.

"Go for it, Deino! He's open! He's…"

Deino coughed, blood dribbling from its mouth. Dawn wasn't sure if lizards or dragons bruised, but even through the dark blue skin, even so soon after the blows, she swore she saw black marks darkening where Bidoof had struck. The monster wasn't even flinching as Bidoof sniffed its face, and then, finally, it was sucked back into the guy's hand. The crowd heckled and laughed, but his blank expression didn't change.

Something really stupid was going to happen. Stupid, and deadly.

"Quit now and give me a few hundred, and I'll leave you alone." She recalled Bidoof, locking him back in place. "Does that sound fair?"

He said nothing.

Then he smiled.

"Nothing's fair, kid."

She turned around too late.

 _"Get her!"_

The world seemed to flash-bang around her and monsters bellowed, and a screeching blur slammed into her gut, hurtling her to the ground—

"Hey! You can't do that!" someone in the crowd hollered, and another pokeball flew in.

"Stay outta this! I said stay out!"

"C'mon, Golduck!"

"Machoke, get in there! Reversal!"

A Buizel's Aqua Jet had nailed in the gut, but as crawled up to hiss in her face, she slammed him into the brick wall and rolled away, tried surveying the place - no. There was no surveying. The whole fight was insane.

In one way, a pillar of fire blasted through the alley, and in the other way the man she had fought was whipping chains against a Machoke that in turn was piledriving another thug's Graveler, that Buizel crawling away, trainers and gangsters beating each other down, pedestrians trapped in the fight, cowering, fleeing—

"Someone kill her, goddammit!"

She looked in time to see a Luxio flying down at her.

 _"Xiooooooo!"_

Dawn flung Chimchar's pokeball in a hook, smacking the Luxio's head and throwing it off-course as Chimchar flipped onto the ground, the ball returning to her hand. "Ember and keep away!"

Luxio yowled as the tiny fires rained around him, but powered through the barrage towards Dawn, skin bristling with yellow light - a Charge, a Spark, she didn't know, she sprung over the attack and spun her back to the wall, ducking under a Hariyama's fat hand blasting a crater where her head was and coming back up when it was ripped aside.

"Kick the head - _oof!_ " She bent around a fist crumpling in her gut, but her legs fired out and crushed the attacker's insteps and when the woman fell, Dawn clutched the woman's head and smashed it into her knee. A good hit - the woman didn't struggle but whimpered as Dawn twisted her around as a human shield.

The Underground, schoolyard brawls - you did what you needed to do to survive.

Luxio was skidding out of a tackle as Chimchar darted away, slashing the Luxio's side all the way down - so much for keeping away, but that was strange - the Luxio hadn't made the Tackle into a Spark. It wasn't putting electricity into its attacks—

 _Juvie, too young, not in control—_

—because it wasn't capable.

"Jump off the wall and grab him! It's safe!"

Chimchar shot her a split-second look before running her way, the Luxio roaring in a frenzied pursuit as Chimchar sprung from the ground, kicked off the wall and landed on the Luxio's mane. He grit his teeth against the faint static, but he held tight even as the Luxio bucked and roared, and Dawn dropped the woman and whipped her hand into her backpack - Chimchar had to get the Luxio's neck but they needed to distract it, and what better way than by hitting it as hard as possible with an annoying and small metal ball—

Except when she threw the pokeball - it opened.

Time stopped. The ball absorbed the Luxio with a seething hiss, sending Chimchar falling face-first on the ground an arm away from the ball. It wobbled, it jittered, it rolled around a lot for a monster half-burnt and clawed up - and then it clicked shut.

Exactly what had just happened didn't strike her - a fist did that instead.

Reeling from the second gutpunch, another giant hand flew in and gripped her face - through his fingers she saw the fury-faced guy she had fought bleeding through his mouth, his arm flying back—

 _"Gaaaaooow!"_ He buckled over when her knee flew into his crotch - dirty move, but morals could curl up and die at this point, and they were dead for sure when Chimchar's Ember lit up the man's clothes, and he couldn't shield himself but could only toppled over—

"Freeze!"

She dove onto the guy, pulling his neck by his bandanna, currently redder than anything, even his blood.

"I said freeze!"

"Shoot her!" the guy damn-near pleaded. "Shoot her!"

"You gotta get her off of you, man, get out of there—!"

"The Skitty man said to _back off!_ "

A stream of fire blasted overhead, Dawn threw herself on flat ground over Chimchar's wobbling figure.

She wasn't anywhere close to the fire, but it felt like she was about to be broiled alive.

When the heat stopped and the air was simply very warm, Dawn opened her eyes to a bunch of quivering guys, trainers and monsters at different levels of injuries and unconsciousness, and, above them all, a hulking tank-like monster slotting its claws out of its cannon-like arms - a Magmortar, ugly as any of them, glowering down at her with a stupid grin.

There were the girls in blue, the stony-faced Jubilife Jennys, but there was also the pink Skitty man shuffling around her. He didn't catch her baffled eyes for long because there was someone else, sharing that Magmortar's expression, and he was coming to stand over her—

Her throat went dry and she bowed her head, like anyone would when they saw an Elite.

Because what was pride when humility meant survival?

"Never a quiet day in Jubilife, huh?"

And not only survival - but future victory?

Flint Nara held out his hand, his grin turning softer.

Without another flinch in her movement, she took his hand, and he yanked her to her feet.

\\-|-/

Chimchar was really happy with the Magikarp, chewing away especially on the pieces rubbed in the hot pepper sauce. "He's got good tastes," Flint said, watching him. "I don't get the people who insist on the tight-ass overpriced joints. Nothing wrong with the basics."

To Dawn's left, the Skitty man was debating with the skittery Hoennese girl taking his order, shutting up only when the girl's tiny grandma peered up from kitchen and bawled him out in the traditional tongue. The Skitty man stood there dumbly before he taking off his cat head and slinking away. "This is not good for the disguise," he said to Dawn, a consternated look on his long and unshaven face.

It didn't matter who else she was eating with - she was just relieved to get out of the throng of cops and reporters descending on the scene.

"Used to know the gym leader around here," Flint said. "Griff. Always took visitors to this place. Jubilife might be a craphouse without the League, but this place is as good as ever."

Flint didn't care about what exactly happened back in that alley. If anything, he probably assumed worse than what really went down, considering his background. He didn't ask, but glanced at the damage, helped her up, and proposed that a kid like her oughta go to the best ramen shop in town.

The League might not have had jurisdiction here, but after patching her up, the only question the cops managed to ask was for her to give them her ID. Anything else was taken care of with Flint clapping a hand on her shoulder like they were buddies all of a sudden, and saying, _"Oh, yeah, yeah, whatever she did, she's pardoned. C'mon, you really wanna lock this one up in jail? No? See ya, then."_

"So what brought you here, Dawn? Journeying? Taking on the League?"

"Sort of. I'm working for a professor."

"One of the university guys?"

The Skitty man pulled a chair over, fumbling with his words, "Sir Flint, with all due respect—"

"Let her talk."

The man sat down next to Chimchar. When he got a nasty look, he scooted to a cramped corner beside Dawn, smiling sheepishly.

"…Someone closer to my hometown," she finally said, scooping up more noodles. "He's in Sandgem."

"Rowan?"

The beef slice felt like a slab of rock in her mouth.

Flint dipped his head in a helpless cackle, clapping his hands before firing upright in his rickety chair. "Scared you, didn't I?" His smile was slightly less malicious. "Don't worry about it, I don't hate. Cynthia's problems aren't mine. Naw, seriously, I can't hate someone with a Chimchar."

She looked at Chimchar, who peeked up at both of them. It looked like he turned himself closer to Dawn - just a little bit.

"You studying fire-types?"

"A little bit. My job is documenting all the pokemon currently living in Sinnoh. Rowan wants his own research."

"And to do that you need to fight the gyms. And this guy's gonna help you." Flint poked Chimchar's side. "He's getting tough, isn't he?"

She couldn't resist the smile. "Yeah, he is."

"Sir Flint!"

 _"What?"_

"I must ask this girl some questions," the man said, gesturing with one paw. "That is - eh, thank for this meal, young miss," he stammered to the waitress. "Several questions, if you do not mind."

"Several questions," Flint muttered. "Yeah, how long is this gonna go on for?"

The interrogation wasn't anything too in-depth - Dawn described how the encounter went, questions about the Luxio she caught, if the man mentioned anything suspicious. All the homeland stuff? He smiled grimly around the noodles flopping out of his lips.

"Yes, yes, let me inform you of some things, Miss…eh, was it Dawn?" He dropped his notepad down his chest. "Cipher. Do you know them?"

"Vaguely. Gangsters from Orre. That's all."

"They infect the arteries of your homeland. Since Orre began, what is the term, eating itself? Evil men in there fight or flee to new places, and they go on stealing, killing, all of that, and the people of the world are highly disturbed. This man, he is a thief, a Cipher man, Exol the commander! And thus he was captured."

It took a few seconds to piece together what he said. "So…Cipher's in Sinnoh?"

"Eh, no, mere fragments of it. Nothing complete." He pushed his bowl away and leaned closer to Dawn. "Your Luxio, likely, is not a shadow pokemon, though it is strange. How they operate, it is, they want the strongest pokemon, so they do not capture them in pokeballs but lock them in cages, and have them fight, and, eh…"

"What's a shadow pokemon?"

He stiffened.

"Evil," he said with absolute seriousness.

"Man, Sinnoh's too boring to have its own secret organization, that's for sure." Flint leaned back, moving his hands as if he were putting together something invisible. "See, if I had a group, I'd call it…Team Flare. It's like Team Magma, but magm- _awesome._ "

"Sir Flint, this is no laughing matter!"

"Yeah, and this is a table for three," he snapped, gesturing to Chimchar before noticing his empty bowl. "Hey, little dude, you need some more? Gotta get stuff in your belly if you're gonna be tough."

"Quite correct! I have no time for chitchat. Justice must be lifted! Wait - is this a tipping country? Waiter! I must require the receipt!"

"You don't have to get him anything" she said to Flint. "We're training after this."

His eyes lit up. "Hey, sounds like a good idea as any. I know a place that could help you with that. Wanna check it out?"

"I must be off!" The man threw the receipt on the table, paper bills fluttering around their empty soup bowls. "Do alert me of any suspicious bad guys, Sir Flint!"

"Oh, yeah, see ya." The door clattered shut. "Damn, if I really see him again I'm gonna…" Flint slamming his hands on the table and made it wobble alarmingly.

"What's with him?"

Flint shook his head. "International police. Thing is, he's completely legit. They told us this genius guy named Looker was coming down, and since we're such, _such_ good friends with Unova we have to help him with everything."

Chimchar crawled across the table to Dawn as she eyed the receipt. "For being a genius, I don't think he realized he paid for our dinner."

"Really? Would you look at that." Now he was beaming. "Call Chimchar back so we can make tracks. I got something cool to show you."

Those words sounded less shady coming out of an Elite Four member than a creeper in the streets, even if the place they went to looked a little worn-down. It was a little shack not far from the pokemon center, but once Flint waved her through the door and chatted with a girl near a busted-looking elevator, they glided down to a jaw-dropping, shiny facility that Dawn immediately knew she could never afford.

"Relax, okay?" Flint took her to the front desk, wiggling his hand for her ID. He handed it off to the receptionist. "Give her a deal. She's with me."

Dawn was about to protest when she glimpsed at the computer and the amount on her card - and she nearly fell over.

"What can I say? Accidental bounty hunting is awesome," Flint said, taking her further inside.

Even more awesome was that having an Elite escorting her got people sweet-talking her all over the place, and the free snacks and potions went straight into her backpack.

"You can't hate any place that gives you free food, right? It's all state-of-the-art stuff here - four legs, two legs, no legs, they got it all."

She couldn't even get over how _shiny_ everything was.

There were immense rooms with all kinds of equipment - basic things found in gyms for people, like aerobic devices and weight-training stuff and martial arts gear, but there were also rooms dedicated for training and refining elemental techniques, coaching and strategy workshops, and trainers on call with different type specialties for one-on-one work. They headed to another elevator which churned and took them even further down to a room for authorized personnel only, where Flint leaned his hand against the palm reader as he spoke.

"This is the best part, though. There's one door we'll let our guys through, and then we're going on ahead." Doors slid open, revealing a tray made for pokeballs and a hallway leading deeper into the basement. "Yeah, just prime the pokeballs and slot 'em in."

At the end of the tunnel was an observation deck loaded, a strange, shimmering window revealing an immense metal room. "Some gym leaders don't even have access to these rooms. It's got everything you need!"

There was the distant rumbling of machines, and then their pokemon were sent out, sparks dancing up the wall. Bidoof looked around the room, gaping, while Chimchar immediately tensed at the sight of Flint's pokemon - and so did Dawn.

Photos and movies of Flint's Magmortar didn't come close to the real thing. A glimpse in the alleyway didn't compare, either. Forget the thug she beat earlier - Magmortar could melt him down for breakfast. The air wavered around him so much it looked like his presence turned reality unstable.

"Now, look at this, you can change up the terrain—" He cranked one wheel and pushed a button, the room twisting and Chimchar bouncing away as the floor slid apart for a rising mountainous surface, and Bidoof ended up toppling over and writhing on his back until Chimchar kicked him upright. "They got all kinds of stuff. Get them used to working in lots of different fields, helps with adaptation. And you wanna see the coolest, most awesome part?"

Hell yeah she did. Flint beamed at her enthusiasm and slipped out a card-sized disc from his pocket - like the Battle CD line produced by the Silph company, she noticed - and he slotted it into a decked disc player. Lights flared up from the floor, even through the dirt, and coalesced into the transparent figure of a Lucario staring dead ahead.

Scars across its face, lithe figure, dark like a flickering shadow but vibrant red eyes - everyone knew who this was.

"That's Cynthia's," she said. "Like - a hologram?"

"You catch on fast."

Machines growled and long robotic arms came through the walls, though Flint jammed some buttons quickly to make them stop - "Ah, no, no, no! They're supposed to put on these things on everyone in the field. Lucario here can't actually hurt us, so we use devices to shoot some pain whenever one of his attacks connect. So we can learn fast."

"How did - that's Cynthia's?"

He put a finger to his lips and winked. "It's really old stuff. Like, seven years old? But it's something. You bring in videos to these people, and they produce them into these things. It's crazy. Crazy awesome. You just mess with some things here, and you got a battle ready to go."

Chimchar approached the motionless Lucario, passing his hand through the hologram, and looked completely clueless. Bidoof was still freaking out over the huge building and all the dirt.

"But we're not doing that. No real point, little lab girl." One button press, and Lucario disappeared, making Chimchar leap back with his tiny fire ready to go. "Man, that's not much of a fart fire, is it? Yeah, we _really_ got to work on that." One clacking dial, and Flint leaned back with satisfaction. "The heat should be turning up…" He checked his watch. "Now."

Dawn didn't feel the room warming up, but Bidoof began to turn around where he stood, sniffing the air, breaking into yawn after yawn, ears stiff with alertness.

"Could you turn it down a little? Bidoof's not looking too good."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, all that hair - I know the feeling. He can handle it, and if he doesn't…well, survival of the fittest, right?"

Bidoof turned and turned some more before snapping into a ball - he was shaking. Chimchar glanced at him, then crept towards Magmortar, twenty times bigger than he was and towering over him. Once closer, Chimchar straightened to his full length and strolled right up to Magmortar, who was distracted with scratching his butt until Chimchar was standing right below him. Even then, he didn't care until Chimchar fired up his flare again, which got him a kick to the face.

"Hey!"

"He's gotta learn his place! It's the only way he'll get help." Flint pulled a microphone out of the keyboard, his voice booming in the room. "Yo, guys, we're not here to kill anyone! We're helping each other!"

Magmortar rumbled like a churning volcano, rolling his shoulders. Chimchar peeled himself off the dirt, a trickle of blood out of one nostril.

Satisfied, Flint leaned back, snapping his fingers at the window. "Bidoof's a training dummy, right?"

She felt herself tense. "He's our bag mule."

"Mm…well, you can catch 'em anywhere. I just need someone to demonstrate this one thing…"

"No! A pokeball is two hundred bucks a pop! I'm not wasting my money!"

"See, I forget that I was poor, once," he said, moving his hand from another panel and calling into the microphone. "Yo, guys! Just so you know, Bidoof's on our side, too. Don't disrespect a member of the crew. That goes for you, too, little dude."

She wondered if pokemon could see through the window - Chimchar kept looking to the ceiling every time Flint spoke. Dawn leaned towards the mike on her side. "Listen to what he says. He knows what he's doing."

Now the air was wavering. Bidoof had come out of his curl but was panting, pawing at the stone ground. "See, that's like, a cool breeze for my guys," Flint said. "But we gotta get Chimchar warmed up."

"Mind if I call back Bidoof? He doesn't need this."

"Yeah. One on one might be better, anyway."

After working the computer that had sent her pokemon out, Dawn had to admit some relief when Bidoof's pokeball came back in. She returned to the observation deck, Flint glancing at her belt. "Hey. You still got a third pokemon."

Oh.

Yeah.

The Luxio.

"…I'm gonna show him to the professor. He's…studying Luxio right now."

That, and she didn't want a Luxio trying to rip off someone's face. And then getting melted.

Luxio might have tried killing her, but that kind of fate would a little bit too much for today.

"You know, if you jack up your membership, they'll do the disciplining for you."

"That's something I have to do," Dawn said - it felt like a confession.

"Yeah. Some things in life, you gotta do them yourself."

That was when she saw the limp in Magmortar's walk. When she looked at Flint, he was staring at the monster's leg, too, and smiling.

"It's all about making them afraid of you. Making them need you."

"Who told you that?"

Pause.

"Some old guy. Back when I was a kid."

She didn't know how that made her feel. But she looked back to the arena. "It's good advice," she murmured.

"Yeah. It is." He sprung up and clapped his hands. "All right, guys! Chimchar, take to the left, watch Magmortar's routine and follow along once you got it. Magmortar, there's a lady present, so keep it clean! As for you, Dawn, let me show you how the rest of this works…"

\\-|-/

Was it a little dirty, hanging out with Flint even though she would fight him within three years?

Yes. It was a downright slimy move. But the more she trained with him, the more he would reveal his weaknesses. Along with those of the rest of the Elites.

Chimchar needed to be stronger, too. Bidoof just needed to be a shield. And she'd do anything to get them there.

As long as he never found out - at least, not until the end - it would be okay.

Everyone was an enemy, after all. And he should have known that better than anyone.

\\-|-/

When night fell and Dawn was half-asleep at the console and Flint was burned out, she headed back to the pokemon center to call the professor and arrange yet another healing session - this time, however, the city footed both of her bills because of her efforts. She savored another look at her account, too, because even after paying for a month-long membership in the training facility, there was just enough for her to restock her supplies and buy some good dinners for the next few weeks.

Jubilife TV, however, didn't care for her accomplishments more than they did about pushing their agenda of fear - _Tonight we bring you a special report on the criminals right next to you!_ She flopped on the empty couch and cracked open an eye to check the clock on the ticker, but it was still thirty minutes before Rowan would be ready.

"We need to dissolve trainer's groups now!" one lady wailed, clinging her Lillipup like she was on some kind of soap opera. "They're stealing and hurting our pokemon, dragging our children right off the streets!"

Dawn vaguely thought it was all unbelievable as she zoned out, but she jolted right back up when they were showing footage of her and Flint hoofing it out of the alleyway, and then there was a cop there. "Her capture was technically legal, but we're looking into the full situation—"

"Mind if we play?" A backpacker slid in front of the couch with his friend, holding a boxy pre-war gaming machine. "You can join in, if you want."

She shook her head and headed to the bed, flopping facefirst on the mattress, and slept - but not before tangling her arm through her backpack's straps.

In other words, she missed the call. When she connected with Rowan in the morning, his deep scowl made her feel like she was the size of a Rattata. She only felt slightly better when she sent him a frothing Luxio that no perhaps other trainer would have been able to catch, and he seemed to respect that.

"It was good, seeing what Flint's pokemon are capable of. He's offering to work with me while we're both in Jubilife. I guess he's really fond of Chimchar."

After not speaking for a minute, Rowan inclined his head. "You've had an eventful day, it seems."

"What, that's all you can say?"

"I'll remind you to be cautious. Flint is both a buffoon and dangerous, his connections even more so. Don't risk revealing your true intentions to him."

"He knows I'm taking on the League, but he's sure it's for helping with your research. I pestered him with questions about his pokemon like any good little assistant would. Even got some photos."

She had them scanned into her pokedex, and Magmortar even pulled showboat poses for his photos, Magmortar aiming his cannons at the camera for one shot, with fires streaming off of his limbs and tail and his eyes a ghostly white in another. Nothing like the awkward shiny-eyed Shinx and a last-minute shot of a blurry Starly that showed up for her personal index.

"In the meantime, there are several pokemon worth training. Those to the west, near Canalave, would be too much for you to handle, but consider an Abra. Once trained, they are useful for offense, and, of course, for escaping."

He was telling her to 'go train an Abra' like it was teaching a Ponyta to walk. Like Abra weren't capable of ripping a Machoke's limbs out of its sockets. Like people didn't find themselves a drooling, brain-dead mess after stepping on an Abra's tail. Not to mention how all the psychic specialists were freaks through and through - mindsharing twins, the chick exiled to the Battle Frontier, Grandmaster Lucian…

Rather than calling a mental ward for Rowan, she managed to say in a thin, barely restrained voice, "Professor, I've seen videos. I'm not sure if I want to be anywhere close to an Abra, let alone its mom."

"Your fears are misplaced. There are no Kadabra near Jubilife, let alone Alakazam. Simply put, Abra have no need to evolve when they can simply escape their predators, and they will not harm others until trained to do so."

"Well, I'm not sure if I have the time to catch one. Or the resources."

"Don't be so sure. Check the regional notes in the pokedex. My former assistant trained one, and I believe some of his findings have been officially uploaded. They will be useful."

"Yeah. I'll see."

"That's all I wanted to tell you, Dawn. I'll inform you when the videos are ready." He seemed about to sign off, but added, "Be careful with that Luxio."

"I'm treating him like a nuclear bomb," she joked - but every joke had its truth.

She gave up the PC to a girl clearly enlisted in an ace trainer academy, and then slumped in the lobby to check her pokedex. Flint wouldn't be ready until ten at the earliest, he had told her, so she had time. Checking out an Abra wouldn't hurt, knowing they lived there - hopefully the nerds who had filled the entries added some tricks to not get killed by one.

As it turned out, there was some serious info on the little psychic - the 'overview' was several thousand words, the linked conference papers made no sense, and it was a nightmare to get through the ten billion notes on all the minutiae of its teleporting abilities - but she had to admit it was slightly appealing to see an Alakazam simply clenching its fist to crush a semitruck into a cube, and seeing it doing the bunny ears to a boy in a dorky red beret.

Getting that Alakazam on her side, though? Wasn't happening.

She threw the dex in her bag and went out the door, nodding at a bowlcut nerd hanging out by the exit before booking it to the facility.

After all - learning to beat a psychic was better than training one. And who was a better teacher than Flint Nara himself?

\\-|-/

The next two weeks were a lot of work. She took care of the basics - stocking up, preparing her own rations, learning to fish up Magikarp to eat. She wasn't quite so successful on the last one and punished her failures by buying a Magikarp for Chimchar to eat - well, at least they were cheap. Chimchar had his with hot sauce, and Bidoof got the sweet-and-sour packets from that Hoennese restaurant simply because she always smiled while seeing him freak out over the taste of it.

Sometimes Dawn took out Luxio's pokeball, considered taking him out - but it was true that he wasn't capable of electric-type moves. He looked crazy, crazy like that Luxray. But he was tough.

So when she and her pokemon were more prepared, she'd start working on him.

And the only way to get there was through training. More than she could ever do alone. In mornings she ran the city with Bidoof and exercised with him in the park, then went to the training facility for most of the day, and finally came back to the center for a deathly, dreamless sleep.

Bidoof couldn't join Chimchar's training sessions, but sometimes he hung out at their feet, brushing against Dawn's boots and getting a good scratch on the chin, wiry hair always tickling her wrists. For some reason, Flint seemed more inclined to scratch and fuss over his hair, even if Bidoof wasn't present - like today.

"Say, Flint."

"What's up?"

"You ever challenged Cynthia?"

His hands were stuck in his hair as his face twisted through about ten different facial expressions all at once - first his eyebrows arched, then his lips pursed, he put a grouchy furrow, a brightened look - "Nope. Not officially. Not since she was a kid."

He was still thinking. Dawn glanced at Magmortar's boulder-melting exercise in one sealed room, and Chimchar, not wanting to be outdone, shot ball after ball of fire on pebbles. Not a constant stream.

"See, I'm thinking he's not the type for special moves. Like, wouldn't hurt to train him in that just in case, but he's gonna be better off with working on his physical stuff. I like that. He's good at that. Teach him to augment his moves with fire, like, y'know, Fire Punch."

"Oh. I wasn't sure if it was just his age, or if he was…well…"

"Weak?"

"…Natural. Born that way."

"He's strong, just in a different way than most. Some guys can melt rocks with fireballs, others melt them with their fists. You figure out how to get it done, and you do it."

"Should we train him in something else, then?"

"Nah. Kinda fun to watch him struggle." He must have anticipated what she was about to say - _no, it's not fun at all -_ because he added, "He's gotta learn how to do that. Struggle."

"Hm."

He rocked back in forth in his chair for a while, and then sat up and spun to face her. "You're still a kid, right?"

"Thirteen."

"Thirteen. That's a good age." He nodded to himself, his gaze oddly cool. "Dawn, at some point or another, you gotta make a decision - are you happy where you are, or are you hungry to go further?" He turned back to the window. "I've been full for a while, but I'm starting to get hungry. Gotta feed the flames before they go out."

"We can get takeout."

"Hah! Good one. But, no, really, I'm trying out this extended metaphor thing. Happens when you got a twinky nerd playing around in your brain all the time."

"Lucian?"

"Oh, yeah. Tries it out on everyone he meets. Everyone. Feels like someone dissecting you in your brain—" He mimed the gesture over his scalp— "Wants to figure out how they tick and all. Charms the pants off of people or creams them in battle. See, you know why he's always doing it to me? Cause he can't nail me down. No matter how much he tries. And that," he said, grinning devilishly, "is why he'd lose to me."

"Has he ever challenged Cynthia?"

He shrugged. "Seems happy just being her dude-in-waiting. Still. I'm not all that sure I'd challenge her. Wish I could, but…" He shrugged again, like it was a nervous tic. "There's a reason we don't challenge her. Hey, guys, moving on! We're doing this one in memory of Griff, so Chimchar's getting the Staravia from his one badge match and Magmortar, go fry up that sneaky, slimy double-teaming Skarmory!"

She wished she could go down and stand where the fights were herself, but Flint insisted it was a no-go if Magmortar was going all-out - even with a wall separating them. This kind of distance training was how he did it.

Distancing himself. She didn't know what to think of that.

"You know Cynthia nicknames her pokemon?"

"Really?"

Flint grinned. "It's terrible. You know Garchomp's name? C'mon, guess!"

"Joe? Tom? Sharky?"

He shook his head to each one, pressing his mouth tighter and tighter to hold back laughter. "You were so close! It's Chompy! Gar-chompy McSakurai!"

Flint threw his head in riotous laughter that boomed in the tight room, and every single impression of Cynthia - creepy quiet kid, dispassionate gaze, killer, monster, killer, killer, killer - stood absolutely no chance against goddamn Garchompy McSakurai.

She burst into fizzing laughter into her fist and doubled over, and Flint kept adding in more commentary, "I don't know what the hell it is! And I - I oughta tell you some more, there's, how do we start, Luke Starkiller, and - man, none of them can top Garchompy—"

"It's not Chompy."

The air turned to ice.

"Her name is Quake."

Cynthia's voice carried through the hall, every syllable calculated into a perfect and projected knife that made Dawn listen.

It was the first time she had ever heard Cynthia's voice.

She couldn't really see her - dark as she was, a silhouette against the elevator door - but there was no forgetting those eyes.

"The fuck are you doing here," Flint breathed.

 _Not here_

Dawn looked back at Chimchar intent on slicing up the swerving Staravia, pressed her hands into the chair.

 _Not now_

 _Not strong enough_

Dawn glanced back and there was someone else in the elevator, too, standing behind Cynthia—

 _She'd kill me_

—and the doors slammed shut, a guttural, unearthly churn of machines bellowing below their feet as the elevator went even lower.

He only spoke once the machines went silent.

"You ever want to know why we don't take her on, there you go. Creepy. As. Hell."

When the time limits on the pokemon fights ran out, they ended training early.

They didn't speak until they were outside.

\\-|-/

The world seemed bigger than ever before once she was out in open air again. Noisier, too - for once people weren't hurrying to their next location but gathered in one place, a huge, unmoving mob of all different kinds of people that she and Flint forced their way through. The bulk of the crowd, stinking of sweat and cigarettes, was at Jubilife TV - Dawn stood on her toes and saw the giant TV screen playing a feed of the event, zooming in on the face of a young politician with fat black hair sneering at the crowd below.

"Galaxy began with an idea, and the Poketch Company did too," he half-shouted. "Ours is a city of many ideas and dreams, and when you vote for me, we will not be limited to the earth but will extend our reach to the stars above! We will make the east see the west's might! We will make the _world_ see it! And we will get there if you register today!"

"…Did he just quote Pokemon Rangers?" Even if he did, no one seemed to care - if anything, only more people were getting in line. "Do you know why they're all here - wait, look at that! Free poketches!"

"Oh jeez," Flint muttered. "I just don't see the point of those things, just get a computer, or, like, a calendar and it'll do all of the same things - _dammit, Dawn! Where are you going?!_ "

Sure, there wasn't much point in a poketch, but free stuff? Always good. One of the political interns at the start of the line gave Dawn a voting registration sheet - locking her to vote only in Jubilife and nowhere else, but hey, she wasn't much into politics anyway - and she filled in the paper against a sign advertising 'Galaxy Energy - Our World Can Be Yours!' until Flint cleared his throat by her ear.

The woman behind Dawn gave him the stink-eye for cutting, but he just shot a stupid grin right back. "We're going ahead. I'm not letting you waste your time."

He hustled her around a long, twisting pack of people, even as people called out to him - "Hey, Nara! Where's the League?!"

"My grandma's Chatot _died_ because she couldn't pay—!"

"What's so great about Oreburgh, anyway?! What's wrong with all of you?"

"Sir Flint! I must tell you something of the utmost importance!"

"Oh, fuh - Dawn, just get your stupid watch!" Flint twisted around to Looker, now dressed in a long coat that somehow made him look even more conspicuous than before. "Look, buddy, you talk to me when I wanna be talked to—"

Without Flint, she was content with waiting behind two fully geared-up hikers for her poketch, and chose to ignore the mutters simmering around her in favor of the argument in front of her.

"I have spotted no suspicious bad guys around! I believe it is safe here for us to speak."

"So what?"

"Well, I also must add that there was nobody near the GTS—"

"Next!"

Dawn jerked around to step onto the podium, handing her paper to a woman filing through stacks of papers, lingering a moment longer for the Galaxy Company politican to shake the hands of the two hikers. "Go, go," a man hissed as they left, and she found herself stumbling forward.

"I've seen you on the news!" The politician flashed the toothy smile familiar in all of his campaign commercials. "I'm grateful that you're supporting me and our great city. Kids like you making your voice heard will only make us greater."

Even if he wasn't the best public speaker, free poketches would be enough to win anyone's vote. And there it was - behind him was another man with a fancy mustache pulling out a poketch box for her. The founder of the Poketch Company, smiling so warmly, probably because he knew just how awesome his product was.

So once the politician waved for the next person in line, Dawn ducked under the tent roof to the company founder, and held out her hand.

Dawn always thought that went things went wrong, they went wrong with a bang.

This time, it didn't happen in an explosion.

It didn't happen with a bomb.

It happened with a shout over the loudspeaker:

 _"Team Galactic for the win!"_

And her world, quite literally, flew upside-down.

* * *

 **Current Team:**

 _Chimchar - Male. Lonely. Likes to thrash about._

 _Bidoof - Male. Bold. Capable of taking hits._

 _Luxio - Male. Adamant. Quick-tempered._

* * *

 **a/n:** before you ask - yes, the luxio was a shinx at this point in the game. it's all for plot reasons, and that'll be delved into in about, say, two chapters? in the mean time, next chapter gets dawn into oreburgh…and starts my gambit at making it more memorable beyond "that place with the nerdy-looking coal miner and all the rocks." i hope you look forward to it.

for other notes - my theory on looker at this point is that he is a keen and good-hearted officer, but the language barrier between kalos and sinnoh/unova makes him sound like a doofus (that and, well, he's a bit of a doofus anyway). i sympathize with that pretty deeply, so his way of speaking is similar to the mistakes i've made. i think it's a happy medium between platinum and x/y, but we'll see what happens in the diamond/pearl remakes.

and, of course, i couldn't resist giving some shouts to the colosseum games. maybe shadow mewtwo in pokken means colosseum 3 is coming…? probably not, but hey, that's life.

finally - i can't thank you guys enough for your support. danke schön for reading, and merci beaucoup for your reviews.


	6. the first hurt

Somewhere, in an elevator underground, the lights flickered once, and then went dim.

Cynthia opened her eyes.

A presence that felt like talons gently settled on her shoulders. Cold air slunk around her neck, even as covered as it was, and brushed her cheek.

It spoke with the voices of many women condensed into one, but there would always be that chanting interference.

 _dialkiapalkialgadialkia  
_ **Champion. There's** **a problem. Outside.  
** _itsbloodrunsamongthestars_

Spiritomb unwound itself to swirl back and forth, pacing. Cynthia shifted in place and ensured it couldn't leave. It was muttering to itself, all the while, different voices interrupting each other.

 **They are out for her blood, but - she defies? - at a cost. Does she…is she…could she…**

Cynthia pulled the jawbreakers from her pocket, shook the box. Old people liked these things. What could she say.

"Are you hungry?"

They all spoke at once.

… **Yes.**

The candy vanished from her hand.

 **Thank you.**

And then, quietly:

 **Champion. We must proceed. And with care.**

There was the guttural sound of metal locking into metal, the gasping of open doors. And then—

* * *

 **5.** _the first hurt_

* * *

It was like a dream, at first. Like being underwater.

When she tried to open her eyes, they barely moved - her eyelashes obscured everything. Her blood was in her head, and it was throbbing. Hurting.

The ground wasn't even under her feet.

After her eyes opened up just a little more, Dawn realized what was going on and wanted to cuss up a storm, except that would've accomplished nothing but giving her a godawful sore throat.

This was a Trick Room. She had no idea when Trick Rooms made people fly, but here they were - mouths were stuck open in silent screams, bodies were frozen in the middle of slipping or falling, and many eyes were closed - even Flint's. His teeth peeked through his lips like he was an old dog, and his hair was enshrouded by a cloud of dark green spores.

There were spores everywhere.

And all around her, the ground and the air were lit up in an all-too-familiar grid that formed a box around the crowd.

Dawn forced herself to blink and breathe as slowly as possible. And in a Trick Room, that meant she was damn-near hyperventilating.

Trick Room was a technique made deadly by Sinnoh's guerilla army, the centerpiece of Bertha Kikuno's massacre of the Unovan Lightning Brigade. Those unfamiliar to the ability found themselves a prisoner in their own bodies, and those familiar…

Well, there weren't so many monsters that survived it.

Dawn did everything slow. Even as her stunner jabbed her hip, she moved slow. Her sight became more like a series of still pictures as she moved her eyes - one moment she was looking at the people ahead, the next she was looking to her left, where boxes of poketches floated like windless clouds. There was no precise action in a Trick Room, unless you were extremely slow to begin with. Or a ghost. Ghosts didn't play by anyone's rules.

So maybe that was why everything was floating. If a ghost had set this off, well, who knew what the hell they were in for?

But she resisted the urge to grin when she saw her way out - a tent pole suspended at a diagonal, the crumpled fabric for the roof right above her feet. Right at the Trick Room's boundaries. Dawn swept her hands over - under? - her head. If she were moving like this outside of this arena, she would've looked like a grandma with serious paralysis or serious arthritis, but here her arms jolted within their sockets, her hands jerked and squirmed, and she felt warm, goofy pride in her when her fingers nearly grabbed the pole.

Except she wasn't the only thing that was moving.

The problem was that her reflexes hadn't slowed down a bit. Her eyes tried jerking to the side, which meant they weren't moving at all, but she could still see things moving - people.

There were people moving. Grey blurs firing around multitudes of silent people. She only caught a better look at them when someone ended up at Flint's side - a man dressed in grey and black, with a bright shock of impossibly turquoise hair, hands slow as he rifled through Flint's pockets, his head tilting around, back and forth, back and forth, knocking aside floating spores - and then around.

He was wearing a gas mask. And those glassy black eyeplates were looking straight at her.

Dawn resorted to cussing very loudly in her head.

Tent pole, tent pole, tent pole - her hands clamped around cold metal like a bear trap. If this was some kind of zero-gravity zone, and hell, that was her best guess, then what did those astronauts say in that moon landing documentary, _just pushing yourself off the wall can send you flying across space,_ and she thought, _if I can pull myself out, but slowly_ _—_

Someone grabbed her ankles, first.

It felt like his hands were still there even when they were onto her wrists - gas mask man, her ears blazing with an ungodly crackling, distorted, churning noise that made animal fear bristle in her nerves - his voice. Slowed down.

Her hands tried jerking to shake him off, but they locked up, and the beginnings of a shout savaged her throat. Now he was pulling her away, smacking a wet cloth over her mouth, and the world blurring around her - there was something _burning_ in her nose. She wanted to grit her teeth, lash out, bite, claw his eyes, break his face, and she couldn't move, and dammit there was _fire_ going up her nostils—

 _youareburningyouareburningdawnyouareburning_

The world was dizzying when the barrier squelched and let them out. The fire went from her nose and shot into her lungs, her hands jolted and her eyes swerved to the side at last, the scream finally came out, and the man bodyslammed her into the pavement and squawked in pain.

She would have punched him - but now her muscles weren't responding.

She couldn't even open her mouth anymore.

Best day of her life. Easily.

"Up, up, up," the man urged himself, his arms wrapped around her torso. "Dammit, why is this _my_ job?"

"Move it! Get in here!"

There was a car with all of its doors open, a woman hollering from the front seat with that blue hair askew on her scalp, and with a hefting grunt the man holding Dawn charged into the car and dumped her into the back seat before kicking and stomping her as he struggled to cram his feet on the floor.

"Are we good?" he asked in a low voice, his mask thumping against Dawn's legs. Dawn had a nice view of the grey ceiling.

"Why is there a girl?"

"Huh?"

The woman's voice sounded deadly. "Where's the guy?"

"He wasn't there."

"He wasn't there?"

"No! No, he wasn't there! I got everyone floating, got everyone sleeping, got the Trick Room ready, and probably by the time all that went down he was outta there and - and this kid saw us! Her eyes were _open!_ She was _awake!_ And there's this, like, there was this Elite guy, the one with the big red hair—"

"You—" The woman's finger must've been stabbing at his face. "have fucking ruined everything. We are going back in there, and we are—"

Somewhere far behind them, the ground exploded.

"What was that?" the woman asked instead of Dawn, whose lips were currently spasming with a vague sense of feeling. "What the hell is going on?"

And there was a distant, echoing screeching like blown speakers.

Dawn could move her hands. Somewhat. She moved them onto her belt - except the guy's hands landed on it, first, going for her pokeballs.

"We're just gonna take those away, just so you don't do anything stupid, and…what?" He looked up at the driver's seat. "What are you looking at me like that for? Drive, you moron. Drive!"

There was something about that explosion. That rumble. If these guys didn't know what it was, then what was it? There was enough feeling in her limbs that she could feel that paralyzing fire, but she could move.

Slowly.

Like she was snake lying in wait.

She dug her feet into the floor, ready to snap up the guy's chest and tackle his head into the window…

"Holy _crap,_ " the woman uttered.

And the car took off.

"Go! Go! Move move move move move _move!_ " the man screamed, even as Dawn's face bashed into his leg, now her legs weren't responding, but the man was leaned so far ahead he didn't notice Dawn squirming herself upright, trying to look out the window in front of her, but there was a deafening boom right next to them.

"I thought you said it was the _fire_ Elite!"

"He _was_ there!"

"Oh my god, we are so _dead!_ "

Dawn managed to get herself into the window. And - yeah. They were.

Asphalt veered past the windows and thick dark vines followed, left and right and all around, clawing their way across storefronts and highrises. Glass shattered, sirens went off, every clawing ripped more and more stone, and along with that Trick Room still shining in the back, her life felt like something out of an alien apocalypse movie. Or maybe - maybe those things weren't vines but the roots of some great tree, all coming out of a tiny dark silhouette heading their way, dragging itself closer with the vines. It made no sense, how something so small could create something so massive, unless it was…

A Roserade.

"Ggh!" Dawn smacked her head into the glass as the car took a deadly swerve to dodge some blasting roots, and just as she recovered from that, a sudden halt flew her tumbling into the seat behind her.

"Oh, dammit," the woman swore, punching out a desperate yelp from the car horn, "oh - god—"

It was a road work blockade, deserted of workers, who had probably fled upon sight of the most flowery demonic rampage of all time.

"Go! Drive! GO!"

"There's no road!" the woman yelled, twisting the wheel. "We might as well just gun it through this thing, and—"

And then they weren't on the ground anymore.

Dawn felt herself sinking while the guy and girl were yelling and arguing incoherently, the car's wheels spinning and rumbling alarmingly all the while. There were only roots visible out the back window, roots and the edge of the sunset.

There was the woman whose distinct lack of driving in favor of screaming was about to kill them all. There was the guy pinning his feet against the seat in front of him to keep himself upright, his eyes locked to the window to meet his death - he had a full belt of pokeballs on him, none of them on this side were Chimchar's but there was one clean, sparkly pokeball. Could've been anyone's. Could've been Bidoof's. Hell, even Luxio's.

It was a start.

She pushed herself against gravity until wild clattering came from Dawn's right, and skinny, writhing roots popped through a thin gap in the driver's window. The woman slid aside, but the roots were wrapping around the other side, too, and Dawn for the first time noticed how hot the car was against the cold wind slurping through the crack.

 _Easy does it._ She lifted her stiff hand. _Easy…_

She couldn't yell in pain or frustration when her muscles locked up again, her hand frozen in front of her chest.

Worst of all, the guy didn't even notice what she'd been trying to do. Without even looking from the window he picked her up, pinning her back against his chest like a human shield, his grip loose. His whimpers jittered in his closed, trembling mouth.

"Give me my pokemon and I can beat her," she said.

The man didn't respond.

Chimchar had fire. But it would probably vaguely singe these meaty roots. A paralyzing bolt from Luxio would have been great, though. If goddamn Luxio knew electric moves.

Okay. Plan B. What was Plan B?

"What pokemon do you have?" she asked.

"Zubat," the man stuttered.

For some reason, time seemed very slow by that point. Like she was in the Trick Room again.

"Where is it?"

He must've figured this was some last conversation before dying. It was easy for people to answer questions like this when they were stressed as hell, she'd come to learn.

"On my belt."

"Which one?"

"I don't know!"

The walls were tight in this car, but they were tight outside, too. A thin road between two walls of buildings. Roadwork. The echoing drone of the city.

There was that lone root in the car, feeling around, seeking. Searching. And it had opened that window.

Dawn felt around on his belt. First ball, checked the info - _Stunky -_ second ball - _Bidoof -_ third ball - _Zubat_ _—_

" _Help!_ "

Dawn whipped up in time to see the root snatching the woman's wrist and pulling her, and in that moment Dawn saw the Roserade leaning closer to their window, the slits of the mask not realing her eyes, the bottom of it fanged all around her mouth like the jaws of a jackal—

Dawn threw herself between the front seats and chomped on the root.

The root reared back and whipped her head into the steering wheel, window shattering with the force the root yanked itself out - and she tossed the ball blindly over her head, out the window, and while absolutely none of these things were planned, she screamed, "Supersonic!"

Because every goddamn annoying bat knew the most goddamn annoying move in the planet.

The screech blew her ears out before she could even get herself upright, but it must have wrecked the Roserade, too, because the roots released and the car was falling and there was screaming roaring up and down the street, and Dawn threw her feet around until she got that grateful churn of the wheels - just as they smashed back on the street.

And they were out of there.

Dawn's eyes opened to a dizzy, confused world, the car rattling and rumbling as it shot over broken pavement. While she could tell those things were fragments of an orange-white roadblock against the windshield, she had no idea whether that road was a turn or a straight line or not a road at all, but Dawn forced her foot into the pedal even harder and watched the world grow blurrier still. Her hands landed on the wheel more so she could cling to something for dear life than anything else.

"Faster! Faster! Go, go go, she's gaining on us!"

"I'm trying!" she managed.

Her leg locked up.

 _Oh, come on!_

"Turn coming," the girl said. "Slow down! The brake, you idiot, hit the brake!"

"Turn," Dawn said, trying to squint the city into something coherent, "I can't turn!"

"What do you mean, you can't?!"

"I can't _move._ " She forced her words through gritted teeth. "Someone - here - paralyzed - me!"

The woman's voice shot to the man behind her. "You _paralyzed_ her?"

"She was _moving!_ "

"Well, she's not moving now!"

Yeah, that was definitely a wall flying their way.

"Grab the wheel!" Dawn yelled.

The moron next to her did it just in time to prevent the car from becoming a new graffiti splash, yanking them down the next turn, shoving the wheel another way to get them down another, and…

"Gate!"

"Stop the car!"

Dawn stomped her foot onto the other pedal in time for them to screech to a long, painful, and finally jerking stop.

An old man bumbled towards the car from the gatehouse, his thick beard and uniform looking made for the tundras and six shiny ultra balls locked to his waist. "Howdy, people. Sorry to say, Oreburgh's rules are no Jubilife cars 'round these parts. Most of 'em can't handle the terrain."

"Yeah," Dawn said, her stomach feeling like it'd been torn away. She wasn't sure if the complete inability to move was the paralysis or something else. Fear? No. Not fear.

The woman next to her pulled levers, switched the key, everything. "You mind if we leave this car here?" Her voice came out like a machine gun's volley. "We're just going to be an hour."

"It's a beautiful thing," the old gatekeeper remarked. "Shame about the window, though. Where'd you get it?"

"Company car," the man from the back said, opening the door to leave.

With all of her pokemon, too.

"Hey, why don't we split up?" Dawn said, stumbling out. "I just need my pokemon back, and—"

And she knew exactly what was touching the small of her back.

"Come on, you gotta enjoy the outdoors a little!" the guy said, pressing the gun deeper. "I swear it's gonna be more fun than it looks."

Dawn nodded.

She clenched her teeth, but nodded.

"Anything funny going on back there?" The gatekeeper squinted at the towering buildings. "It sure sounds like a blast."

"Free watch giveaway," Dawn said.

"Free watches? Ain't no such thing as free, little lady." He unrolled his sleeve and showed off the silver watch on his wrist. "I got this one from my great-granddaddy, and in those days, you should know, you didn't get a watch just by showing up…"

"We're kind of in a hurry," the woman cut in.

"Is that so? Well, let me give you my pointers." He slung his thumbs into his belt. "I'd recommend keeping as far away from Oreburgh as you can get. You'll probably be safe up until the gate, but with those funny little outfits, they're not going to be kind to you. They're not going to be kind to anyone." He gave those words a little pause. "What's with that get-up, anyway?"

"Initiation," the woman said, looking at her nails. "We're part of a trainer's group. We're heading out here for a mission. A hunting trip."

The old man nodded, his smile lingering on Dawn. "You just be careful, wherever you go."

The gate opened its doors. There were no suburbs in these parts - a city, a wall, and then the impossible, open and vast wilderness.

And to think - to think that her mom was more worried about the freaks in the wild.

Team Galactic.

She wouldn't forget them. Not ever. Not for the rest of her life, at least.

And that seemed to be getting even shorter with every passing minute.

\\-|-/

After several hours of walking, stumbling, locking up, and staggering through a route only lit up once by the lights of the coal train plowing down the tracks towards the outskirts of town, the woman grabbed Dawn's shoulder and wondered, "So what exactly do we do with you?"

Smoke was coming down the route. Everything was darker than it was before.

The woman steadied Dawn to a stop, then fumbled with her arms to unstrap and drop her backpack. The man stuffed Dawn's pokeballs inside, and kicked her into the dirt.

She sucked in a deep breath tinged with dirt and growth. "I saved your lives," she said with tight lungs. "We'd be dead. If it weren't - for - me."

"Thanks for that," the man said, "but we can't save yours. Sorry."

"Wait, what do you mean? What are we doing with her?"

"I guess we just kill her. Dump her body on the tracks and get outta here."

Dawn forced herself onto her back. The woman was smaller than the man, but looked like she could jump up and crush his throat. "Can we not kill people today?"

"You worried about ruining your nails or something?"

The woman crossed her arms.

Dawn couldn't move. If she waited, things would smoothen up. But that was just it - time. She needed time.

"All sins will be forgiven," the man said, slinging his hands onto his belt. He looked down at Dawn. "Yes-sir-ee, kid, it's all gonna be a new world, so don't you get all salty on me now."

"Right." The girl put her hands up and turned away. "So _you_ take care of it. None of this was my fault."

"You really think you're too good for us, don't you?"

"I think I'm too good for _you._ Anyone else on this planet would have picked up the _man—_ "

"Now, you wait a second!"

"What, you can't even remember the face of the guy who ruined our lives?! His stupid hair, his - his face—"

"We can settle this when we've gotten this done—"

"Who the hell are you guys?"

They stopped and spun towards Dawn.

"What do you want from me?" She could still move her eyes this time. Back and forth, slack-jawed man to gaping woman. "Is this about the Zubat?"

"What? No. No. It's a bat. Who needs a bat? I can poke a tree and a bat comes out. No, it's just about you being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"There were hundreds of people watching. More than me."

"They were _asleep._ No, really, they were," he snapped to the woman behind him, then looked back at Dawn, his fingers spread. "Look, it's nothing personal. We made some mistakes."

"We?!"

"—and you saw something you weren't supposed to. So. We're taking care of that."

"Actually." The woman held one finger up. "Actually, we have another way to fix that. On the one hand, we can kill you. On the other hand…you can join us. Join Team Galactic."

"You're an energy company! Is this how you guys hire people?"

"We are _not,_ " the man bellowed, "Galaxy! We are _Galactic!_ "

"You can even come up with your own name," Dawn muttered, legs twitching but not moving. "Okay, what's your deal? Why do I join you?"

"Because you're about to die."

"Because—" The woman gave him a stern glare. Dawn could barely see the glare but it made the guy shrink. "Look at it like this - a galaxy has everything, the good and the bad. All things meaningful, all things meaningless, and you should know, there's more the less than the full. We're focused on eliminating the inessential, the things that are dragging us down, so we can just have all the good things, and life will be good."

"Excuse me?"

"Have you ever been upset with the way the world works? We're going to fix that."

Keep them talking. Get backpack, get pokeballs, everything from there.

"I'm upset," Dawn said. "I'm upset because you're talking crap about changing the world and I don't even know what you're doing beyond killing me. And I'm not sure about joining you to find out."

"Too bad," the man said. "If you joined us, you'd get it. But, seeing as that's not an option…"

"No, I think I get it now. You guys got fired and you're making up a ripoff company for revenge."

"You think you're funny, don't you?"

"Yeah. I do."

The man looked at her eyes. "You're scared."

Frankly? After everything else she'd been through?

"No."

"Okay." He pursed his lips. "We'll make you scared."

He took his hand up and aimed the gun at her face.

As a kid, a gun pointed at her family, she didn't know what it was and didn't think to be scared. After getting a little older, she just didn't think to be scared at all. And now, she thought, she had every right to be scared, even if she didn't feel anything but a little bit chilly.

Dawn looked right into the gun.

 _I guess something out there really has it in for me, huh?_

"Today can only get better from here," she muttered.

The gun shook. His hands were shaking. His face was contorting and pressing in all different ways, and maybe it was Dawn keeping her face perfectly placid that made him yank his hand away and gasp, in desperate, spewing breaths, "I can't do this. You do it."

"Me? This was your idea!"

"I can't - I can't!"

"You know, I have a pokedex."

They both looked right at her, mouths still open.

Dawn didn't know where her words came from, but she kept going. "Your pokemon for my pokedex. And you let me go."

" _My_ pokemon?" In a second the man had turned back to normal.

"No, mine."

The woman blinked. "What?"

"Just give me my pokemon. You can have my pokedex."

"You have one?"

"Give me my backpack."

The man took away the bag instead, hands lingering on the outside. "If you're lying to us right now," he said under his breath, eyes only on the backpack, "if you're lying…"

"It's somewhere in there. Front pocket." The man unzipped that, rifled through for what felt like a full minute. Storage capsules, thin bottles of antidotes and that tantalizing paralyze heal. "No - side. I keep it in the side. Not there? Check the big pocket - yeah, dig deeper—"

"Dig deeper up my ass!" he snapped, throwing the bag onto the ground - and the pokedex fell out and clattered onto the dirt.

"Good god," the woman said in a hushed voice. "She wasn't lying."

Dawn could feel her fingers again.

She was expecting a sort of quiet, underhanded deal. The idiots would look over the device, nod at each other a few times, whisper some things to each other or communicate with shrugs and stares. They'd get a cool gadget. They'd let her scram and shoot off a quick volley after her just for sport. She'd get out of there with her life and her team intact.

So if she could've flinched, she would have.

" _Oh my god!"_ the woman screeched as the man tackled her in a hug. "Look, look, we're saved! We're saved!"

"We're saaaaaved!" The man threw up his arms as he whooped and laughed, bursting into a run towards the woods and back. "It's a real pokedex! Hype hype hype hype hyyyyype!"

"Oh my god," she hyperventilated over and over, "Mars is going is going to kiss us!"

"I don't want Mars to kiss me!" the man wailed.

"I'll kiss you!"

"I don't want to kiss you, either!"

A piercing cry interrupted them.

They went silent. "What was that?"

That was a Rapidash. The doctor at home - not home, Twinleaf - he had one.

"Oh, Palkia," the woman uttered.

"I'm afraid we don't regard those kinds of gods in these parts."

A man on a Rapidash curtailed it around, the heat from the horse making Dawn warm even several paces away. He twisted a fat cigar in his mouth, keeping an unerring gaze at them as a pickup truck pulled up with dim lights and a whole load of people in the back, two metal figurines of rearing stallions on each fender.

"The only god," the rider said, "is man. How you doing, girl?"

Dawn grit her teeth, but couldn't show them.

"Why don't you come on over here?"

Like hell.

The pickup door swung open as another man hopped out of the truck, a good few heads shorter than the rider even after accounting for the horse, and pulled out a shovel sticking through the window and used it like a walking stick for his uneven gait. He surveyed the scene, too, face unreadable under the dark splay of hair, and spat on his hands. There was some dark mark under his knuckles.

There was feeling in her arms. Pins and needles.

"Lay off of her, boy. That's not how you treat a girl. Not one who's got the shocks. Look at her hands, twitching - got a mouthful of spores, that one. So this is how you greet her - you pay attention, now."

The rider stroked his Rapidash's mane, fire licking him but not burning, as the shovel man stomped his boot onto Dawn's backpack and leered down at her.

"Byron Lee O'Dowd's the name, and don't be mistaken - I'm a half-breed. Just like you." He was smiling at her expression. "Yeah. It's the eyes that give it all away."

One worker woman, dark-skinned, was whistling a Unovan song - While the Blood Runs Warm. Barry's dad used to listen to it.

"What do you want?" the man behind Dawn asked.

Byron Lee O'Dowd screwed up his lips and shoved himself onto two feet. That mark on his hand - it was a Drapion, it looked like. "We got certain reports of havoc going on down in Jubilife, just as we were busying ourselves with a bit of a culling. We heard this bit of a commotion, and here we are."

This guy looked capable of chewing barbed wire. His whole pressed-lipped smile looked like a maniac's slash across his face. "So I told you what's going on. Now you tell me."

"It's none of your business."

"None of my business!" He looked at Dawn like they were in on some joke. "Look, I am a very forgiving man, as all of my kids here will attest to, so why don't you tell me what all y'all are up to?"

Things were complicated, and not even good. She could move better. Legs coming back. Hands moving at the wrist.

"We don't have to tell you anything." The man was trying to sound firm. "No one's going to patrol this route. We can do whatever we want to you, and you can't stop us."

Byron's smile went flat.

"I don't think you understand." He took a step closer to the man and woman even as they backed away. "I _am_ the patrol. And I _am_ the law. Everything here - those tracks, that gun, your head, belongs to _me._ This is my land."

He flipped the shovel onto his shoulder.

"And you're not welcome here."

Byron swung the shovel and bashed the man clear on the head, felling him like an axeman did an oak tree. Dawn's backpack tumbled towards Dawn as the woman bolted, throwing down a pokeball that burst with a wave of psychic energy that reverberated through Dawn and everyone and made her dizzy.

Backpack - Dawn threw her hands around her backpack as more lights came up with a bellow that shook the earth and a whinnying that pierced the air. She held onto that thing as if it were the only thing that mattered even as there was an awful grinding of metal on metal and somehow the whistled song pierced above as it came back to _you better get yourself religion—_

There was some thunk from far away, and Dawn's vision steadied to a Rapidash with the kidnappers slung behind the rider, Byron coming down the hill with an immense demon behind him - it wasn't anything Dawn had seen in her life. It had about ten different eyes going up and down its square head, and - hell, that head alone looked bigger than the truck, bigger than anyone, hell, the only thing bigger than it were the trees, and there was no way out for Dawn. Not one way. Not like this.

"Which," Byron said, "is to say, all y'all are a pack of idiots." He thumped the kidnapper on top in the back. "You assholes put 'em in the back and get outta here."

"Does that mean we have to walk back, Byron?"

"If you don't have some creativity in your heads." He smiled broadly, toothy, and it never did quite reach the corners of his eyes as he regarded Dawn. "And as for you, you precious little thing. Just what am I going to do with you…?"

She could move now. Entirely. Her hand crept into the pocket with the pokeballs.

"Small of stature. Skinny." He crouched down just as she got a pokeball hidden into her fist and pulled her onto her feet. His eyes lit up. "Oh. I think I know what to do with you."

"O'Dowd," she said, "I have friends in the League."

"Now, are you stupid like those grunts, or just deaf?" His grin was unchanging but his eyes kept shifting to different expressions throughout the conversation, and now they were squinted, tight. "What did I tell you before? I am the League. If I weren't here, Sinnoh wouldn't be here. _You_ wouldn't be here. You owe me big, girl. Real big. I give you your life, you give me mine."

He took his hand off her shoulder and turned to the workers in the truck. "You be careful handling this one! We got a use for her yet!"

"What's that use, Byron?" someone cried, sounding like this was the start to some working chant.

"The seam, ladies and gentlemen! The _seam!_ You take her on down there," he said, twisting his head her way, "and—"

"Get him!" Dawn yelled.

She threw the ball into the ground and threw her elbow into Byron's back, tumbling him into the Rapidash that reared and shrieked as she took off past them all, the familiar crack of Bidoof's tackle reaching her ears.

"Hey! Hey, you don't attack us!" a woman cried, her voice fading as Dawn pounding heart and feet filled her hearing. "There's _laws_ against that sorta thing!"

Dawn's feet slipped and scrambled down a jutting hill and she rolled into the brush, past a wall of trees, and fell against something squishy. Her hands couldn't find anything solid to grapple onto until she pulled herself back up the hill, and when she tried getting back onto her feet she saw exactly what it was - not mud. Roselia. Dead Roselia.

Crushed, squashed. All piled up, scattered around a pile of rocks that was a deceased Graveler. Begin plants they looked elegant, even in death, sickly sweet smell coming out of what was intact of their expressions, smiing, demure, every last one of them.

They didn't quite seem dead. They didn't bleed like other monsters did. It was all green. Sludge. Nothing.

Culling - Byron mentioned a culling. Just a culling. But she didn't like it. That whole thing on Route 201 - she didn't like it. And if Bidoof caught a whiff of this...no, Bidoof was stupid. He wouldn't remember. Bidoof was...

 _Wait. Crap. Where'd he go?_

She looked over her shoulder, squinting at the dark, just as Bidoof rolled down the hill, landing on his back with a determined slant to his dark eyes. He nodded once at her, scrunching his nose.

She couldn't help but smile back.

"We're outnumbered," she said, both to him and to herself, "but we can get around this. You're good at running, so you distract them, and I…"

Run away?

Winning. There had to be a way out. There was always a way out. There was a way out of the thugs, out of that Luxray...dammit, no, there was always someone _else_ who had come in...

 _Dammit. Should've gotten an Abra._

Someone else - yeah. They needed backup. Chimchar. Hell, a rabid Luxio thrown into the fray would do them a world of good—

But her hands only grabbed her empty belt.

Her backpack - she left the entire backpack up there—

"Little giiiiirl! We got your school supplies here!"

She shut her eyes and punched the dirt.

"We got - let's see - one precious-looking Chimchar, one little Luxio, and that's all? A man has a full team of six under lockdown before he even steps outta his hometown!"

Luxio, the backpack, they could have that. Bidoof's pokeball, that was fine, he could follow her around. But there was Chimchar. Him trying to arm wrestle her or rolling around and playfighting when he was bored. All those tabasco packets kept in her bag. His warmth at night.

"Is it the little rat you're attached to? The kitty? Or the monkey? Who gave you the monkey, girl? A fella named…Joe, is it? You think Joe's gonna be happy when he sees his monkey's been made into sausage? You think—?"

"What the hell do you want from me?!" she yelled, eyes shooting open. When she didn't get a reply, she went in some more. "I've had a _really_ bad day. You're trying to kill me. They tried to kill me. So tell me what the hell you want."

His voice was quieter now.

"Just a favor. Just a small matter of honor among crooks."

Bidoof jerked her wrist with his little paws, half-dragging her arm. His nose flexed a few times, and he nodded, eyes narrowed, before hustling into the forest. Dawn crawled after him.

It was like being in the Sinnohan army, Bertha's tiny guerilla group versus entire batallions. Scouting for weaknesses. Sneaking around. Wiping them all out.

…Granted, it might have helped if she had earth-eating snakes and fish that could yawn earthquakes, but - there had to be a way out.

"I'm not letting you have a choice," Byron said, "but if you say the right things, you just might find that your luck will change."

Patches of wet leaves sunk under her knees as she pulled her stunner from its straps, slowly, so she didn't make any noise. Bidoof stopped and got onto his back feet, snuffling the air for a moment before changing his direction.

"What do you say, girl? We're all about cooperation, here."

"I don't follow," she called.

Bidoof whipped around, his little smile suddenly turned into the most exasperated expression she had ever seen on him.

"Why don't you come over here, and I'll explain things face-to-face?"

She rolled her eyes and motioned for Bidoof to keep going, then said to Byron, "How about we pretend we never saw each other?"

"Girl, I can never forget the face of someone assaulting me. Especially someone assaulting me with a _Bidoof._ "

Why the hell didn't she just grab the backpack in the first place?

No.

Why the hell didn't she just ditch the Chimchar…?

Because - because he was tough, he was her connection with Flint, he was…she had sunk in enough money into him. Because she wasn't letting her money or time go to waste.

Because…

Because—

She nearly belted out a swear when Bidoof grabbed her wrist and shook him off, heart pounding. Bidoof lowered himself to the ground with a bowed head, looking up at her with uncertainty in his eyes.

No. Bidoofs weren't ever uncertain. They were idiots.

"Keep going," she said.

He didn't. They were in a different part of the woods, one where the truck lights shot through the trees. Bidoof nudged Dawn's empty hand with his wet nose, and turned around with a soft cry.

Dawn squinted into the dark, and muttered, "A Budew. Okay."

Its feet were dug into the earth, it was incredibly small and hidden among old underbrush, but yes, it was a Budew, furled up in growth and keeping absolutely still. Even as Bidoof scurried up to it, plucking its tiny body from the earth.

He had an idea, Dawn realized. If those men had killed the Roselia, by Bidoof's logic, they'd be happy if she killed the Budew. Made herself one of them. Something like that.

Except Bidoof got the Budew dangling in his tiny arms and tottered on his hind legs, not even dragging it along with his teeth but toddling over, Dawn finding herself totally stiff, until he came right to her coat and snuggled the Budew into an open pocket, patting its head when he was done.

"It's gonna die, Bidoof," she whispered. "What are you doing?"

Bidoof curled up into a tight ball. And she remembered - her orders.

He'd attack. She'd run. They'd get the bag. They'd get out.

 _But why the Bud_ — _?_

"Girl, I've about had it with your hesitation! Sebastian's gotten hungry and I'm thinking a little snack is in order, and he's always liked a nice, hot dinner—!"

"Don't you dare!"

She turned around but Bidoof acted first, letting loose the loudest cry she had ever heard from him as he bulleted through the trees, and she was after him, too - it all happened so fast.

"Somebody get that rat!"

The stunner got one man whirling her way and Bidoof smashed into another man's calf, and she blitzed ahead only for her backpack to slam into her side and send her staggering, but it was her backpack, it was Chimchar, and she got it into her arms and took off. There wasn't anyone in her way, just the open and overgrown fields, so she screamed for Bidoof, she screamed, "Follow me!"

But she heard the loud _clannnnnng!_ and wet thunks when the shovel struck, and her knees locked up with a burning jolt, and she fell onto her backpack.

And despite all those healings, all those potions she'd consumed in her life, her stomach was hurting like it had never been fixed.

"Patience is the key. You wait and corner the rats, and you give them a good whack."

Something squirmed in her pocket. A hand grabbed her scarf and got her onto her knees.

"As much of a rat as he was, he took orders well." Byron looked at her, one hand on his shovel for support. Over her shoulder - off to the side - Bidoof wasn't moving. "Yeah, I heard you down there. You told him to run, he ran. You told him to distract, he distracted. It could have all worked out," he said, "if you hadn't stopped."

There was light coming in through the cloud cover. The grass was dark, and gleamed.

"A man," he said, "a man, before he begins his journey, learns to fight through paralysis. He learns to fight through everything that's coming his way. What's in you, kid?" Byron's pungent breath made her turn her head away. "A little squirmy coward? Always trying to run? Letting your little rats die so you get on with your own life? It's all about you, isn't it?"

In the cold dim morning, she couldn't see much of his body. But she wanted to pick him up into her arms. She couldn't even move them.

"Flint Nara will look for me."

Byron's lips became a smile. "Good. That's very good. I hope to hurt him as much as possible."

"He loved that Bidoof," she said through her teeth.

"Did he, now?" Byron slapped his thigh and got onto his feet with his shovel in both hands. "Then you watch this, because it's going to be a lesson you need to learn." He looked up behind Dawn. "Go on, make sure she watches. I don't want any whining from her after this."

The rider thumped off of his horse and went for Dawn, not doing much beyond propping his hand on her head, shoving it tight down into her neck, while Byron approached Bidoof. His lips were puckered into a vague frown as he took up Bidoof with the shovel, whistling three times. His demon came down the hill, every footstep booming like a falling tree, a gurgle bubbling from a mouth that could crush chainsaws.

"It's what I'm going to to do Flint at the end of all this," he said, "and kids, if you misbehave, it's what I'm going to do to you."

He flung Bidoof's limp body into the monster's mouth, which latched shut like a guillotine. Not once, but - so many times, too many times.

Cannon fodder. Vermin. Rat. Monster. The most pathetic of all monsters.

"He's a herbivore," Byron said with something like pride, "but I got him trained real good."

 _It's not a loss,_ she thought. She wasn't angry. She wasn't upset. It was just - _It's not a loss._

The man behind her let go of her head.

 _It's not a loss._

No one - no one in this entire planet would ever care that a Bidoof had died.

But for some reason she didn't shoulder her bag and move on. She didn't shock the man standing behind her, and she didn't run away, even though every muscle in her body was primed for that alone. She found herself gliding closer to Byron, the world strangely vibrant and clear - the smell of smog in the sky and blood on the earth, the stinging bile in her mouth, the scraggy purple hair across Byron's head, the weight of her backpack, the unsteadiness of the ground beneath her feet.

Not one person stopped her.

There wasn't even one thought in her head.

"Hey," Dawn said to him.

"Yeah?"

Dawn spat on his face, and when he whirled, she swung the stunner into his chest.

The giant monster bellowed, but Byron's fist shot out, making it clamp its mouth shut. Her ears rang, and no one uttered a word as a small wet blob quivered on Byron's face.

His eyes were going wide. The whites looked capable of swallowing up his dark irises. He watched her for several long seconds, then broke the stunner out of her grip without even a grunt of pain.

She didn't break the stare. He didn't, either, as he flipped the stunner her way, cranking his thumb to jack up the current.

"Get this one into the mines," he uttered. "I'm dealing with her myself."

He smashed the stunner into her.

And it all went dark.

* * *

 **Current Team:**

 _Chimchar - Male. Lonely. Likes to thrash about._

 _Luxio - Male. Adamant. Quick-tempered._

 _Budew...?_

* * *

 **a/n:** 'black friday' always sounded like a pretty grim day, so here's a black friday chapter. bidoof's death wasn't quiiiiite like this in the game, but it was pretty sudden and brutal nonetheless. with high defense and with simple as his ability, he was a great defense curling-wall for the early game and dished out critical hits like candy, but he didn't last long enough for me to give him a super deep personality and backstory. that said, if you're worried about the pokemon themselves getting character and personality…well, for slight spoilers, bidoof's death pretty much kicks that off. among other things.

and sorry about the delay. work and school got busy (i'll also blame the new machamp mini-website for blowing my mind), so i didn't get time to revise the chapter. whatever the result, i'd rather get it out and get moving instead of getting picky.

i hope the 'muricans had a happy thanksgiving, and that today is treating you better than it did dawn. thanks for the reviews, and thank you for reading.


	7. the mine

**6.** _the mine_

* * *

"Get up. You've wasted too much time."

Dawn's mind woke up before her body, which twitched and struggled so slowly that she thought the rumbling in her ears was the snarling of monsters all around her - and her eyes still didn't care to open.

"I really, really, really recommend you get up now. For my sake. No hard feelings. Please?"

That…wasn't Byron.

Once she cracked her lids open, she found herself cramped between black stone walls, a bright light cast behind her, and Byron standing before her, smelling of soot.

The rumbles weren't from a monster. Now that she was fully awake, she could tell they were drills cranking against rock. She was in a mine. This was just one corner of it, but yes - it was a mine.

"Glad to see you're up, girl." She couldn't see behind her with the light, which just left Byron's smeared, crooked face for her to look at. "You get some sweet little dreams?"

"If you just let us go," a woman said, "I swear, we won't kill you."

It wasn't just _a_ woman. _The_ woman. Dawn snapped in her direction and dug her hands into the ground. "If we're talking about killing, let's talk about you."

"This—" The woman's eyes were wide, hands trembling in front of her face - she was different without the wig. Dark-haired. "This is absolutely not the time to talk about that."

A subterranean grumbling came from behind her, and a monster was definitely there, too. That giant beast from earlier, its head a wall of its own that blocked the route behind her. Only two of its eyes moved, following her own. Come to think of it, the rest of those eyes weren't really eyes, but more like the spots on a moth's wings - fake. Guy had nothing more to him than being big and being nasty. And as she looked at Byron, leaning against his shovel, yeah, nasty wasn't scary enough.

"Shovel to the head takes out the boy. Couple of punches does our first girl. And as for you," he said, addressing Dawn, "a little zap to the head and you're out." He shook his head. "You really weren't ready, were you? Oh, every little kid thinks they can persist…"

He trailed off into an inaudible mutter, picking at a stain on his shirt. The Galaxy guy, he wasn't there at all. Just her and the woman.

She didn't know what that meant, but she remembered - Bidoof had broken underneath Byron's shovel. Just a Bidoof, people would say. But her Bidoof.

The world didn't have room for the weak, people said.

 _Well,_ she thought, pushing herself into a crouch, _I'll do my part to free up some space._

Dawn pushed herself to her unsteady feet, hot bile sloshing in her gut, and looked right at Byron. He seemed more concerned with that stain on his wifebeater, so she crept up to him, fists clenched, ignoring the little squawky gasp clutched in the woman's shut mouth—

He struck.

The jolt seared through her Dawn's and shot that familiar taste of metal in her mouth, and after a moment of blinding white in her eyes, the light washed away to the toes of Byron's boots in front of her and the cold ground pressing against her cheek.

"It's a good stunstick," he said. "Old one, too. Where's it from?"

Her mouth was dry. "My closet."

"Pah. Ripped it off of someone, didn't you? One of my men?"

"I've never seen you or your men in my life."

"That's cute. Girl, were you ever given rules to life? A moral code of sorts?"

 _Never cower._

Dawn got herself back onto her knees, then, slowly, onto trembling legs. "No."

"Lady, were you?"

The woman shook her head. "I'm guessing your friend wasn't, either. That's what gets you into desperate places." He shifted his weight onto his left leg, his smile looking so long and his eyes in total shadow with the angle of the light on his face. "Then let me give you your first. Pass this onto your friend so I don't have to say it again: You never approach me until I give you permission."

"You the king of Sinnoh?"

"Might as well be."

The moment she thought to move, the blade of the shovel bashed Dawn's cheek, knocking her aside again as the ground shook with the monster's roar until Byron held up his fist. "The second rule," he called, strolling around Dawn, "is that you obey all rules."

"Oh, that's easy," the woman said in a wavering squeak.

It looked like there were about four Byrons spinning around each other - she couldn't focus.

New strategy. She crawled back towards the monster, but still faced Byron.

"You do everything I tell you," Byron continued. "I tell you to dig, you dig. I tell you to eat, you eat. I tell you to pray, you pray." He took two steps forward and spat on her hair, the wet spot already crawling down her bangs. Repaying the favor. "You do everything I tell you," Byron continued. "I tell you to dig, you dig. I tell you to eat, you eat. I tell you to pray, you pray." He took two steps forward and spat on Dawn's hair, the wet spot already crawling down her bangs.

"You sad little thing," he uttered, his eyes even looking sad. "Already thinking she's gonna die, and we haven't even begun. But I'm quite fond of the easy things in life, and our lives will be easier if you do as I tell you." He stuck out the end of his shovel. "And I'm telling you now – you go to that nook in the wall, and you dig."

Once it felt like she wasn't going to fall over, she crawled her hands along the ground and took the shovel in her fingers. He wasn't gripping it hard, so she slid it right out of his grip, and stuck it in the earth to get herself upright.

"So what are you going to do, girl?"

"Dig…"

Her quiet voice switched into a knife.

"Your grave."

Byron whipped up his arms and she caught the outrage ripping his smile before she smashed his face, his arms bundled around his head as he fell and rolled along the ground. The monster howled, but she swung around to get a clean blow across its face - but that face was pure metal and the crash rang through her body and rattled her skull, but she saw the monster's red mouth open, and twisted her grip to stab the shovel—

"Don't hit him, you numb-nutted freak?"

Dawn broke into a yell and pivoted towards the woman—

But a rock shot from the monster's iron toes, punching Dawn's shin and crashing her down to eat stone one more time. The pain flared for a moment before switching into total numbness. She couldn't move her leg.

That day, she learned that the problem with getting a broken limb was that you didn't feel anything at first. The body took time in registering that kind of pain.

"Third rule is that you accept all consequences." Byron stood, his arms folded behind his back. "Any and every consequence. Truth is, I ought to let you bleed on out of this life. But you, little girl, you're just all too convenient." That last word rolled out of his mouth like smoke as he got onto one knee, tugging the shovel in her limp hands. Dawn tried to say something, spit something, but her mouth was twitching too much to articulate a word. Byron smiled at that. "I get the feeling we're all gonna get along after this, don't you? But there's not much work you can do on a broken leg. So go on." He patted her shoulder. "Get yourself up to the nurse."

Walk. Walk to the nurse. She could do that.

Dawn reached for shovel. She couldn't catch her breath, or the shovel, not as Byron held it above his head and grinned.

"Nuh-uh-uh! With your own two feet."

That was when her leg started to hurt.

"Help."

"What's that?"

She looked up at the woman, who sat pale and utterly motionless. She asked again. "Help."

"I can't hear you!"

"I'm sorry, now help me!"

Byron's smile snapped into a toothy snarl as he gripped her collar to yank her up, and he yelled, in her face, spit flying, "Is that all you've got?! Is that all it takes for you to listen?"

"I'll dig and - look, I'll dig." It was so hard to talk, not like paralysis but - just— "Help me!"

Byron dropped her, his mouth in a thin straight line. "I never once imagined it would be this easy to tame you." That line curved up. "The sound of tears in your voice? Oh, I like that. I could wrap that up in a little package and put it around my neck." He slapped the dirt beside her head like a wrestling referree and yelled, "Yo, boys! One of you go on and get her out to the nurse! Do it fast, cause she's not going to last long!" Then he leaned into her ear, and added, "She's not going to last long at all."

The problem with breaking a limb was that at first, you had no pain – and then you felt it all.

\\-|-/

"Dad? Dad! What did you do to her?!"

"I was taming her, son."

Wasn't that Byron…?

"Dad - oh god, Dad, she's a kid—"

"When you understand what it means to tame, you'll as good as earned your title. Leader Roark. It doesn't have that good a ring to it yet."  
So who was the other guy?

"I can't let you—"

She heard a smack ring through the air.

She felt a jab in her arm.

"Don't look," the nurse said.

Dawn looked - some vague part of her thought the nurse was telling her not to look at Byron, but instead she saw her leg.

To her credit, she didn't faint.

But she kind of wished she did.

\\-|-/

 _Make them fear you. Make them need you._

They didn't put her to sleep for the operation. She saw the inside of her leg. Nurse told her to keep her eyes shut, but Dawn had to know what those tools were about to do to her - yeah, no. Terrible idea.

Dawn didn't know any mantras to keep her head straight, but there were the rules. Rules she went over while a Chansey carted over tools. It threw the blanket over her face after she looked down for the fifth time.

 _Fear and need, fear, need, fear, need…_

Oreburgh. Without a doubt, this was Oreburgh. Kids at Twinleaf were never taught much about this place beyond that it was Sinnoh's mainland mining territory, said to be where the lesser felons ended up - but that was always just what people said. Why the League would station a gym here, she supposed it was the fact that Cynthia was insane.

 _Everyone…is an enemy. Survive, train monsters._

She thought morphine would kill pain. It only put a little distance between the pain and her brain, just so she could tell that the pain was south of her waist and trying its damndest to kill her. She vaguely noted she was being moved, that there was clanging metal all around her head and the lights were dimmer than before.

 _To find glory—_

"Done."

In a snap, the pain wasn't so persistent anymore. She felt herself sliding and the blanket flew off her head into the hands of a nurse with a sagging face. "O'Dowd will be coming in. Get yourself ready for him."

The nurse stepped out of the room, her gloves snapping. Dawn kicked her leg a few times, the tension still there from stress or the old spores or what, but - moving. Aching. But moving. The Chansey chucked Dawn's pants at her face, and Dawn rolled those back on, noting how this surgery room looked nothing like the hospitals she'd seen, not with all the tools and equipment scattered around like a room in a repair shop. They didn't even stick her in one of those dumb little gowns Barry had to wear once.

Well, that last part was more good for her than anything else, especially when Byron clomped into the room. He studied her with his arms crossed before putting his heavy hand against Dawn's forehead. When she didn't rip his wrist from its socket, he starting mussing her hair. "There you go. You thinking about listening to me, now?"

She bowed her head. It felt like getting whipped. "Yeah, O'Dowd."

He thought that was so delightful, he patted her head, squeezing it once, as if he could break her skull.

"You're gonna go back down, and you're gonna get some sleep," he said. "You'll get up early tomorrow. And you're going to dig."

Her pounding heart was, undeniably, fear.

That was probably the worst part.

\\-|-/

As soon as she woke up again, they made her limp through the mine.

The nurse's surgery room was just a part of the complex, bored deep into a mountain. Her office was one branch of a metal-plated chamber, and the road back to the mine was pure stone.

The interior was like the capital of a lost kingdom, with staircases carved into the stone walls and crowded by miners and Machoke alike, machines and drills howling against the shouts of men. Overwhelmed, she craned her neck, and still couldn't see the end of the coal columns - hell, if she pointed a light up there, there probably would've been clouds. But Dawn was smacked aside by some workers hauling a giant hose, the men shooting her strange looks and a shrug along the way.

Drills rattled her feet and left her ears ringing, and the breeze kicked up by machine exhaust had a strange bitter tang. The only directions she got were to go straight, and to go down - and as she squeezed into the deep, quiet tunnels, the drills from outside rattled her feet and left her ears ringing, and down there, the air echoed with dripping water.

By the time she was back where she started, the Galactic - Galaxy - whatever guy, he was there too, slumped like a doll and surrounded by digging tools.

Shovels, pickaxes, chisels - not one drill among them.

"We dig," the man said blankly.

The woman sat beside him in a stoic silence, a flat expression on her face.

"Where the hell do we dig?" Dawn muttered. "The ground?"

"The _seam,_ " Byron's voice hissed, making them all turn. "Right there in front of your eyes."

"What the hell are you doing with him?" Dawn said, her voice lacing with fury, strong enough to make even the ache in her leg melt away. "Put him down."

"I am using him as a demonstration," Byron said, Chimchar in his fingers with his teeth gnashing like Dawn's. "I don't care how you split up the work, but if it's not to my satisfaction, Sebastian's got some words for you, because I don't have time for them."

"Put him down—" She lunged at Byron when he drove the stunner into Chimchar's side, and she only got Chimchar's sharp hiss of breath and a boot to the gut for her efforts. "

Get to work," Byron said as she crawled back up. "I'm telling you now - Get. To. Work."

She was about to say something again, but he spoke first. "Work."

Something tapped her shoulder. She craned her neck around to see the man sticking a shovel at her, not even bothering to look up. After a second of doubt, she ripped out the shovel and got her feet and - that gap must've been the seam, it had to be - and she smacked the metal into some loose stones, prying them out and she smacked it again, shoved it down, dug, ripped, finally clanged against a boulder that wouldn't budge—

Did the boulder have eyes?

"What's the matter, you scared?! Keep on hitting it! It won't be the first grave I've dug for a stranger!"

She looked at Byron - still with Chimchar - then back at the boulder. Except the boulder simply sunk into the ground with a grunt.

Geodude. Or Graveler. It was impossible to tell the difference from there, but one meant survival and the other…

"That's where the monkey comes in," Byron said. "You want the kitty, too? Hey, catch!"

She threw down the shovel as Chimchar flung through the air, her stomach wrenching when he wasn't even flailing his limbs, but the moment he smacked on her face, he relaxed.

"He's gonna make your work go faster, so you work. And I mean all of you are gonna work. If you're good tomorrow, you'll get your kitty next, little girl. If you do good after that, you might get a bed. But if you slack off just once…" He clicked his tongue, and left it at that, strolling back and letting loose a slow blues song that boomed off the tunnel walls.

The man and the woman still weren't moving, the woman resting her hand on the man's shoulder.

Worthless.

Once Dawn got Chimchar slumped over her shoulder, she lugged over a pickaxe, and set to work some more.

She didn't notice the one little squirm that came from her pocket.

\\-|-/

At some point, her muscles didn't let her lift up the axe anymore.

Sometimes, monsters burst out of the ground or the walls, and it took either one strike of the pickaxe or a stern, keen chop from Chimchar to split the stone from their flesh, getting them to retreat. Chimchar's attack had a sort of finesse she'd never seen from him, but he was too tired to force him to demonstrate again.

If she couldn't fight back, there was no point. The pickaxe clanged against dull stone and she shuffled backwards from the seam, where the path barely looked longer than it did before. But she must've been working for hours. Or days. Hell, she didn't know.

 _Too bad I don't have a goddamn watch._ But even that thought didn't have any fire to it.

Dawn staggered back, steadying herself against the wall, suddenly realizing just how sore her limbs were, how just lowering herself down made her back shoot with pain—

"Why are you so attached to that monkey?"

She shot her glare at the guy, shifting Chimchar onto her other shoulder in case he tried to grab him. But he was just looking at her, his head limp at his side.

"Freaking out over him getting a little shock," he muttered. "It's nothing."

"It's not that. I paid good money for him, and I want my money's worth."

It was sort of true.

" _Is this about the Zubat?_ " He mimed her voice and presumably her expression. "You have a pokedex and you're crying over a bunch of things out to kill us. Aren't you supposed to, I don't know, dissect them?"

"I'm here to just look at what kind of monsters live out in this stupid country, so if you want my pokedex so badly so you can go out and get yourself killed, you can be my guest—"

Now he was coming to life, zooming in on her face and spitting, "And you can suck my—"

"Emotional attachments are the beginnings of all strife."

They both looked at the woman. "Hm?"

"You need to love as few things as possible. I kind of get that, now." She glanced at Dawn, her shoulders relaxed. "That guy beating us up, he only got here because he loves nothing. That's what it takes to be successful."

The guy blinked. "Are you high?"

Her expression fell flat. "I'm not high. I'm kind of the opposite of high right now."

"What do you know about success?" Dawn muttered.

"Hm? Oh." The woman relaxed again. "There's this man I know - he's more successful that anyone I've met. He's seen stuff. I mean, the war - he was in the war, and he's…just…strong. He's going to make it big. Really big."

"Champion big?"

"He wouldn't want us to tell," the guy said, crossing his arms and lowering his head.

Dawn sat back, patting Chimchar's shoulders.

She couldn't be weak in front of him.

So she thought - if this was Oreburgh, then Byron must've been the gym leader. She didn't know anything about Oreburgh, but she knew about the mine. Sinnoh's coal source. Surrounded by mountains. There must have been some route to cross over the mountains, and even if there wasn't…

 _We'd still have to beat Byron._

She still hated them, the people next to her - but this wasn't the day to hurt them.

"If we're leaving this place, and I doubt we want to stay, we need to buy some time. You have to work with me, and we need to make O'Dowd happy."

"You know what I think is pathetic? That you're so stuck on making him happy." The man hadn't opened his eyes. "Digging away. Just for him. We're not getting out."

"No, we're not. I am. If you don't help." She shifted the dozing Chimchar as she bent onto her side - as good a place as any to sleep.

"We can't even fit in there," the woman said. "The seam."

"Monsters come out now and then. If you can do the fighting for me, I can keep digging."

 _I give you your life, you give me mine._

To escape, Dawn needed time. She needed backup.

And digging was the only way she could get those things.

\\-|-/

On the first day after that talk, some errant bats came into the tunnel from the mine. Dawn squeezed herself into the seam and patted Chimchar to keep him in line, and the woman eventually got fed up and swung the shovel to get the bats to stop latching on to her exposed skin. Sure enough, when a Geodude erupted from behind Dawn, the woman was the one to beat it back into the ground.

Byron threw in some pails of food, nodding, smiling. "You're not working fast enough," he half-sang, and he must've gotten bored of the total lack of reaction from his prisoners, because he chucked Luxio's pokeball at Dawn's head and cracked up at Dawn whipping around to drive off his yowling, clawing lunge.

"What the hell did you do to that cat, girl?!" he yelled, slapping the wall with laughter, Luxio finally driven off with a mustered-up Ember from Chimchar, one that exposed some singed skin on Luxio's flank. And more than that - strange lumps festering on his skin. Stretch marks.

He cowered when Dawn lifted up her shovel, as if she were going to strike him, but she just grabbed his pokeball from the ground and called him back.

The woman didn't ask questions about the Luxio, but said, "Are you going back in there, or what?"

Dawn didn't eat that night, and barely ate the next. The moment she gave up her share of a lukewarm microwave dinner, his eyes went wide and he plunged on the food, tangling his fur and blotting his hands with gravy, with such gusto that had more life than Dawn had ever seen in this tunnel.

It was enough to make her sit up straighter.

The next day, with a thick headache pounding her eyes and sore muscles that wouldn't let her move, the man made her drink some water. She got better.

The third day, she stopped keeping track of the days. Food was the only way they could mark the passage of time, and that didn't seem to come at any set interval.

Above them, coal cars rumbled to the surface. Explosions rocked the mine.

This was where Sinnoh got its heat, its light. All surfaces eventually turned black, here. All of their chests hissed after just a few days, and now and then, the lightbulbs hooked into the ceiling flickered. And when they did, it always felt like the world was about to come to an end.

At some point, Dawn opened her eyes as she heard the sound of the wall ahead collapsing - revealing another wall. She didn't remember swinging the pickaxe, but didn't care.

She just hated how there wasn't an end in sight.

Dawn let the axe slip out of her hands so she could slump against the wall. After some muggy thoughts, she stripped off her gloves, and breathed on her cold hands.

The walls seemed so cramped.

She didn't want to stand up again.

The lightbulbs went out again. Too exhausted to care, she shuffled off to the side to twist a bulb a few times, and a yellow light switched on so she could see a tiny body throw an arm over his face - Chimchar.

"Sorry," she said, looking away. "Kind of dozed off."

But Chimchar wasn't mad about her sleeping - he was looking down the tunnel.

He grabbed her leg and tugged, motioning with one arm, his eyes dead set on the end. "What's wrong?" she asked, squinting through the dark, and she saw the impossible - there was a way out.

It was a long way up, but she squeezed her eyes to get a better look - "Is that a rope?" She squeezed into the tunnel, followed the wall until she hit the end, and that was definitely a rope - dangling all the way from some place she couldn't see. Chimchar held his arms up to her and she hoisted him up to reach. "It's not fake, is it?"

Chimchar tugged the rope with one hand, then scrambled up until he got a good grip with one hand and stuck the other on his hip, a grin swerving on his face.

Even under the hope rearing up in her she still felt stooped over - but god, there was hope.

"Let's get out of here," she said, and jumped up to grab the rope. Chimchar was already firing up, and Dawn decided not to question things once she had the rope in her hands and her feet against the wall, and tried catching up.

It seemed so strange.

It seemed impossible.

Maybe it wasn't.

She couldn't be sure.

But on her next grip her hand slipped, and while she managed to cling another section in time, Chimchar made a choked gasp and fell. He smacked against her hands, and she thought about grabbing him, she wanted to, but her body just didn't move, and - it msut have been the impact, because he let a little surprised huff out of his mouth and his eyes were wide open as he bounced off her hands, falling. He reached for her legs but the bad leg hurt when she stuck it out and it was just too late anyway, he didn't grab it—

She couldn't even yell at him, couldn't even turn her head to see, as if it would help.

There was no ground. It was just dark.

 _The hell…the hell…_ She looked up, but the top wasn't there, it was all dark up there, too, the dark below shifted. Moved. She gripped her other hand onto the rope but her grip was slipping, her other hand strained, she was trying to hold - she was trying to hold, but it was getting so hard.

And then there was the monster - a monster with ten eyes, all of them moving, they were all real and Byron's monster was so huge but it was rearing up like the earth's pull was nothing, its jaws open to the glistening red tunnel of its throat—

She kicked up to hit the wall but there wasn't a wall, she looked up and there was the top anymore but the endless dark, and her hands - her hands were still there but the rope was untwining, and her hands couldn't grab a stronger part, and the rope strained and was about to _snap_ —

They always said you weren't supposed to die in dreams.

Dawn woke up from that death thinking she was in the hell that remained.

\\-|-/

"God," she breathed with a strained voice, heart pounding. "God _dammit._ "

 _That wasn't real - that wasn't real - that wasn't real…_ She bent her neck back, and rubbed her sweat-covered palms on the sheets.

Chimchar wasn't dead. None of them were.

Her leg felt so sore.

There were voices coming up from the mine, coming down their way. Dawn scrambled up and jabbed the woman awake, who rolled over and slapped her hands over her ears, but realized what was going on in time to wake up the man.

Coming down the tunnel was a squat little grey thing with a blue head, who surveyed the tunnel and brayed at Chimchar. Behind the monster was a creature - no, just a man. Tall, lanky, scruffy hair and nerd-looking glasses that added up to someone who was more of an academy reject playing dress-up as a miner.

"Get out of here," the nerd said, his face stony. "Come on."

"I tamed her good, Roark," Byron said, coming from behind the taller guy like a snake. "Doing it your way, we just got people killed. Doing it my way?" He clapped Dawn's shoulder. "We got people _tamed_."

The nerd's expression faltered.

 _I'm sorry,_ he mouthed.

"Do what you do, but I expect to see them back here in the morning," Byron said. "I tame them, they're my responsibility. Not yours. Mine."

A wolf kept its mouth shut and its head down until the time was right to strike. If they thought she was broken, so much the better.

The trick was to not actually _be_ broken.

"Get out of here, unless you want some more," Byron said, stomping out of the tunnel with the clang of his shovel, and the nerd urged the three of them out. Four of them. Chimchar was with her, grabbing her leg after he couldn't keep up with her pace.

It was a long hike to leave the mine, and out there, all the houses in Oreburgh were either trailers or grim concrete blocks slanting down hills and cut-out paths, lights brimming and scattered through wind-whipped dust. The biggest building had a red League symbol glimmering under the surrounding floodlights, and Byron made a loud, barking shout that had the slouching miners scurrying back indoors.

Before they went inside, Byron grabbed her by the shoulder and whirled her around.

"Been a while since I've been able to do that, and it's always been with good results. You wretched little thing, you who are my servant," he said, and his wrapped his fingers around her throat.

Well, like every wild dog she kept her head down and her eyes locked to the side, looking at this man's eyes would spell out her death and she didn't want her throat slit tonight. He spread out his fingers like he was cupping her shoulders, not so much of a chokehold but something planting her feet into coal.

"You dig, and you obey," he said, as if she were a pet.

He waved to the guy before turning back, and said, "You'd better appreciate!"

"I will," the guy called out, fixing the glasses that were slipping off his nose before pushing her through the door.

The air was so clean inside, her lungs felt ready to burst with how much breath she heaved. The lobby was set up much like a pokemon center, but there was a staircase the guy guided her up, a hallway with a dark room clattering with a projector wheel and some movie. She didn't care to get a better look before the guy led her down the hall, to a door, and followed her through. He kept his distance even as she took some steps into the room, her body damn near falling asleep just at the sight of the bed.

"I better not be sharing a room," the woman called out, and Dawn briefly envied how the hell she managed to have the energy to speak.

"You're not," the nerd said. "You each get your own room. You come back out here in the morning."

Dawn didn't reply. She forced her eyes off the bed her aching muscles were urging her to fall into.

"You need to listen to him. You'll die if you don't."

"Fucking help us," Dawn said.

"…I can't." Roark opened his mouth and shut it, thought before speaking. "I'm doing what I can. But…this is something bigger than you. You need to dig."

Even in the dark, she could tell he was giving her a long, assessing stare.

"At least we're out," Dawn said.

The door shut, and even as Dawn couldn't come up with an answer to that herself, she knew, collapsing into cold feathers and a squealing iron frame.

This time she felt the squirm.

This time, she just didn't care.

\\-|-/

It was impossible to tell the time in that godawful town. She woke up feeling a pain in her leg and a soreness all over. It was pure black outside, and the room smelled strange - not like something burned, but something singed.

She rolled so she was sitting upright, fists at her sides, before pulling the cord on the cheap lightbulb dangling over her head. After a few flickers, her eyes landed on the backpack at the foot of her bed, and she dove right into it without a second's hesitation, ripping out painkillers that she sucked down without even a sip of water, and waited for the pain to stop.

Something cold latched to her arm, and she ripped it off - bright green strands of light leaving trails under the lightbulb, following all the way back to some goddamn Budew with the creepiest of all smiles etched on its face—

It flew back without a sound as Chimchar blurred into a tackle, rolling them both off the bed as a water spewed across Dawn's face. She leapt to her feet, right on a puddle, and slipped and bodyslammed the brawling pokemon, and the impact made the ground underneath her explode in light, and she realized exactly what she had done just a moment too late.

Luxio thrashed under her stomach, bellowing as the tufts of his fur stuck up. She shoved him back down but he slid out and skidded so he was facing her, just in time for her to flail her fist and punch him in the nose, and through it all Chimchar was yanking on the stiff bedsheets, and - and before she knew it, teh whole goddamn mattress bashed them into the cold, wet tile.

After a full minute of stillness and the coldness of strange bumps against Dawn's arm, she delicately shoved the mattress back onto the frame.

Quite frankly, the Budew, flat on its back and still smiling, looked as though it had resigned from life. Luxio huffed from the struggle, his mane frazzled, half of his hair gone - long before this fight, she knew. Long before she even got him. Her brain registered that he should have attacked her, but her limbs were too slow to stop it - except it damn well wasn't moving a bit, save for the huffing of its rib-gouged torso.

Chimchar stalked back from the three of them, tugging at Dawn's arm. But rather than retreating, she reached for her backpack instead.

"This place sucks, and we're goddamn hungry. Let's eat."

Luxio snapped at the chunks of jerky flying his way. He breathed with his mouth open, he glowered at Dawn as she surveyed his sickly body from afar, but he didn't attacked her. When she redirected her attention to Chimchar and Budew, Luxio slowly inching himself back on his haunches, but he didn't try lunging at her.

Budew, on the other hand - giving it a full bottle of water seemed like a waste, but damn if Dawn was drinking coal-town water. One of her storage capsules had a cooking pot Budew made itself home in as Dawn poured the water.

Why the hell did Bidoof want this Budew in her hands so badly?

"Your family's gone, isn't it?" she wondered out loud. "Just like his. I guess you have nowhere to go. Nothing to lose."

Budew didn't need to understand a word. As expected, it - well, she, now - put up no resistance when Dawn struck her with the pokeball. Considering she must've been stuck in Dawn's pocket for a few days, she probably got starved out and was too exhausted to resist. Or maybe she knew she stood no chance. But Dawn tossed the pokeball with quiet satisfaction.

Three pokemon - a demented cat, a fire-assed monkey, and an expressionless flower-to-be. It was better than just Chimchar and Luxio, at least, but how exactly someone got themselves to the head of the League with what she had, Dawn wasn't sure.

Even so, they could sure as hell bust themselves out.

She took another look out the window - it was dark, but it didn't look like anyone was out there. Learning the terrain around Oreburgh was necessary, and if, when the time came, she really, desperately needed those goons to help her…

 _Who am I kidding? I'm leaving them here._

The pokemon were done eating. Without another thought, she scooped up her team's into their pokeballs and bundled herself into a new layer of clothes.

She didn't have a solid plan other than getting her team together and scoping out the town for ideas, and that's what she did.

The way out wasn't so difficult - hell, there wasn't even anyone in the lobby. Once outside, she bundled the scarf around her chin to keep the cold from seeping into her gums, and the wind-kicked dust made her eyes water. She struck a path to her right, passing by blackened trailers and concrete block houses, trudging up the slope until she was met with the silhouette of a mountain range rising over her head. That slab of metal at the end of the path must've blocked the route through Oreburgh Gate, and the guard at the gatehouse was dozing with a Rapidash at his feet. He worked with the League, judging from the insignia stamped on the shack.

Did he notice her coming here…?

Waking him up would only serve to piss him off. She turned in a full circle - just mountains all around town.

Melt the gate, maybe? Could Chimchar even do that?

Dig a tunnel underneath the - no. No, that was just stupid.

 _There has to be a way out,_ she thought, rubbing the grit from her eyes.

Down the opposite way, there was another League-endorsed building, cut from black stone that seemed to absorb what little light there was in town. There were some building complexes, a grody brick structure at the edge of town. The path cut north, and at the end of the road, there was only a patch of stringy grass with several slabs of wood stabbed into the earth.

Graves, she realized. She zipped her coat to her chin, even as it choked her a little.

All around her, the wall was pure, smooth stone, impossibly high, impossible to climb. Not with her bare hands. Not the way she was.

She felt a cold fleck land on her nose.

"Are you lost?"

Dawn was too tired to jump, but she flinched with every exhausted fiber of her being. "No," she said.

It was the nerd from the mine. Glasses guy. He wasn't that much older than her, and just a little bit taller.

"Dad always said that as long as you can see Mount Coronet, you're never really lost." He smiled at the thought, tilting his head up the rock wall until it was craned all the way back. "No matter how much the world changes."

"Dad?"

"Dad…?" His head shot down, eyes wide with realization. "Oh, um, my dad. Byron. Your boss."

"He's your _dad?_ "

"People always seem to say that, don't they?" He laughed, quickly reducing it to a cough after she didn't join in. "Man, it's chilly."

Dawn was about to turn away until she felt something tap her leg - her good leg. Her stomach twisted with unease at the sight - some grey lizard creature with a blue head, braying at her, his arms looking shrivelled compared to his giant legs. She took a step back.

"C'mon, Cranidos," he said, kneeling down to clap his hands a few times. The lizard-thing brayed at Dawn once, a sound like a desk moving across the schoolhouse floor, then sped to the guy's open hands.

"The hell is that thing?"

"Cranidos," he said. "Dad excavated his fossil from the mine and we brought him to life."

 _This…isn't real._

It wasn't even the resurrection part that did it, but the fact that this…nerdy teenage child man with the stick-like arms who wasn't even wearing a goddamn coat apparently worked in the mine like it was just some casual thing and - yeah, Dawn slapped her cheek. Unfortunately, she wasn't dreaming.

"H-hey! You okay?"

"I'm just tired," Dawn said, palming her face.

"Couldn't sleep?"

The bitterness was in her mouth. "Bad dreams."

"You're affected by them?" He was about to get up, but a protesting whine from Cranidos made him scratch the monster's chin some more. "You seemed too tough to get scared."

"I'm not really affected."

"So what brings you here, then? Trying to escape?"

"No." Dawn blinked the sleep from her eyes. "Not like there's any way out of here."

"There used to be," he said. "There's a shipping route right through Coronet that takes us to Hearthome. They're a clean city, but they bought coal for emergencies. Gardenia's people wrecked the path."

Looking behind her, there was something written on the graves that she couldn't understand, a sentence split between across the planks - _nous ne serons jamais que des orphelins_ on one, _et pourtant je sens mon couer s'affaiblit_ on the other. No name, no dates. They looked more like chunks off of an abandoned boat than any real grave.

"Gardenia?"

"You don't know her? I guess you're not taking the gyms. She's the Leader of Eterna." He said it like it was bad medicine. "I don't understand her one bit."

"I don't understand this place at all."

"I'm not sure if I do, either."

This was somehow a League town. Rowan - jeez, the old fart seemed like a distant image in her mind, but he knew this was a town. Jubilife lived with the burden of the fact that Oreburgh was the town.

Hundreds of thousands of people, potential for industry and innovation, damn near the capital of the West - dropped for the sake of a big pit stuffed with psychos, criminals, and monsters. The League protected this den, the League officer stationed at the gate must've known they forced her into this world - he must have seen her come in - and he was doing nothing about it.

Cynthia was an asshole, sure. But something wasn't adding up.

"It's kind of chilly," Roark said, finally getting up when Cranidos relented, but the lizard was still strutting around his boots. "I know... I know you want to get out of here. I can't help you, but I can talk to you more in the museum. Should we go there? It's warm."

"Give me your name, first," she decided. "I'm Dawn."

"Roark," he said, already heading back to Oreburgh.

Dawn shoved her hands into her pockets and followed him.

All through the dark and the falling snow, it felt like this was a trap.

\\-|-/

Apparently, Roark had keys to the museum. Probably the perks of being the gym leader's son. The walls were lined with exhibits dedicated to the history of the mine, the glass surprisingly clean and the floors polished. Roark pointed out one corridor, saying, "I work for the lab back there. It's where we resurrect fossils."

"I just…" She looked at Cranidos, tapping his blue cone of a scalp against a podium and backing away under Roark's stern glare. "I know people have done that. But how?"

"Trade secret," he said. "I'm just glad you're not, you know, freaking out over it."

"I know some people who would."

There weren't any scientists in the lab right now, but Roark flipped on the lights for her to see - it looked about as messy and mechanical as a lab should have looked.

"Does your dad have one of those fossil monsters?"

"Bastiodon." He switched off the lights. "I work here now, but he had Bastiodon since before I was born. That's when people were really upset."

Cranidos scurried down the exhibits. The air was warmer than it was outside, but it was still hurting her leg.

"We can do a lot more with experiments, now. The League wanted our ideas, so they pumped money into this town. It helps that Dad knows which strings to pull, and…here we are. We get this lab, we get a museum, we get new tools…"

It was weird to see a smile that looked…well. Warm.

"And me."

"I owe you an explanation, don't I? Why you're here and all that. Come with me."

She followed him with some trepidation, but he only walked her down in a loop around the exhibits and ended up at a wall of paintings. None of the work was realistic, nothing stunning, nothing worse than what she could spew on a page - folk art. And at the center of it all was an artist's name in humongous letters - Thomas Lee O'Dowd.

"What, is he your grandpa?"

"Read it and see for yourself."

A quick skim gave her the general idea - imprisoned in Unova for black market involvement, escaped from prison and made his way to Sinnoh to find a fortune. Bought up a chunk of inhospitable land deep in the mountains and woods and dug. Dug until he struck coal, and kept on digging, burrowed a tunnel, and sowre, once, that he met the devil buried in that tunnel.

Judging from the sloppy art, devils to these miners were humans with red skin and the horns and hooves of a Tauros, carrying pitchforks instead of shovels. But they had coal-black eyes with bright red cores, the same as everyone else's devil. In his big claws was a dark grey rectangle, clutched delicately between the claws of his fingers.

"I don't want you to tell anyone this," Roark said, his voice a whisper. Even Cranidos wasn't tapping his claws or grumbling, but his head was up and his eyes trained at the painting. "As far as people know, you're just digging up another coal deposit. The motherlode. But that's not what you're looking for."

She started to object, but Roark spoke over her, "It's because you're the only one that'll fit. The only other ones who can fit in there are kids, and he's not sacrificing them."

"So he'll sacrifice me?"

"You got yourself into it," but he only said that after hesitating.

"How? I was dragged into this! I don't belong here, and it's kind of getting clear that you don't, either. If you can pull your own strings and open up that gate—"

"You tried killing my dad," he snapped, making Cranidos jump in surprise and Dawn whip into a defensive stance. For a second it was more believable that he was from Byron's blood, but the look on his face seemed more desperate than anything. "You tried killing my dad, and you failed, so that's just how things work."

She couldn't put an appropriate response in words, and wasn't sure about the monster stalking around her bad leg. Roark, meanwhile, pushed his hands against a glass display case holding some battered tools from long ago.

"You're not as bad as the others," he murmured. "People have treated Byron a lot worse than you have, and they're still working here. If you listen to him, he'll go softer on you eventually. So don't mess around, keep your head down, and work."

"Eventually."

"Yeah, eventually. I don't know when."

"And you're not going to do a damn thing about it. So what's the point of this? Trying to make me an obedient little worker so you can feel better about yourself?"

He tried leveling her with his gaze, but quickly broke it off. "Look, he's not evil, Dawn. He's strict. You have to be strict around here. When you see people dying around you every single day… It's not just the mine. The Budew, Roselia…"

It took a moment for her to remember. "Is it Jubilife?"

"Dad says they breed hundreds of them, and send them here to break the equipment, and - I guess it was an accident, but they killed a bunch of kids. That's why he's so angry. And his lungs…"

"Okay, great, but I don't have any part of this."

"He's my dad. So don't hurt him."

Nothing was right about this place.

"So what am I digging up?" She gestured to the painting. "A devil? What, is he going to kill it? Break some kind of curse or something? Beat the devil and you get infinite coal spitting out of the ground?"

"Oh, we're not killing the devil. We're helping him."

Correction - absolutely nothing was right about this place.

She opened her mouth, but jolted when a yelp came from outside - no. Not a yelp.

"What's that?" Roark craned his neck. "It's—"

"Screaming," Dawn confirmed, inching closer, her hair blowing back as Roark charged over and threw open a window, letting in the full-on yell:

 _"We're under attack!"_

* * *

 **Current Team:**

 _Chimchar - Male. Lonely. Likes to thrash about._

 _Luxio - Male. Adamant. Quick-tempered._

 _Budew - Female. Serious. Likes to eat._

* * *

 **a/n:** "what the hell rex didn't update on a friday" - it's called 'this paper is due on saturday at 11:59 lololol have fun'

there wasn't even an apocalyptic explosion in this chapter. it was, i dunno, one of those slow chapters or something. i'm sorry for letting you down.

some notes: the sentence on the grave is riffing on arthur rimbaud. there's some good stuff by him. google translate will probably serve you if you want to know what it says.

in general - at least, for a few gyms - arcs should take three chapters to get through. at least, if all goes as planned. i prefer the risk of rushing than making places like oreburgh a complete slog to clear. and because i don't want to write fifty thousand words of 'dawn dug a big tunnel and it was really boring and it hurt a lot,' and i doubt you want to read it.

if you object to this at any point, , let me know and i'll see what i can do.

next week is finals. cross your fingers if you want an update before christmas.

thanks for reading. and thanks very much for reviewing. it's a busy time of year, so i'm grateful for your support.


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